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EUGENIE   GRANDET 

THE   MA RAN AS 

THE   EXECUTIONER 

FAREWELL 

A  SEASIDE  TRAGEDY 


-«•. -^ 


■&&&*: 


.D.farrjct'ii 


COME,     NANON,    TAKE    AS    MUCH     AS     YOU    LIKE. 


W)\ 


H.    DE    BALZAC 


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EUGENIE  GRANDET 
THE  COUNTRY  PARSQ 


AND   OTHER   STORIES 

UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00008246597 


TRANSLATED  BY 


ELLEN    MARRIAGE 


WITH  PREFACES  BY 


GEORGE  SAINTSBURY 


«*e 


PHILADELPHIA 

The  gebbib  Publishing  Co.,  Ltd. 
1899 


CONTENTS 


VOLUME  I. 

PAGE 

PREFACE ix 

EUGENIE    GRANDET i 

THE  MARANAS       .         .  - 225 

THE  EXECUTIONER 297 

FA  RE  WEIL ".         .         .310 

A    SEASIDE    TRAGEDY 359 

VOLUME   II, 
PREFACE ix 

THE   COUNTRY  PARSON 

I.    VERONIQUE I 

II.    TASCHERON $2 

III.  THE   CURE    OF    MONTEGNAC    .  .  .    -       .  .  .  .82 

IV.  MADAME   GRASLIN   AT    MONTEGNAC I36 

V.    VERONIQUE    LAID    IN    THE   TOMB 242 

ALBERT  SAVARON .     285 


Ml  J< 

583355 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


VOLUME   I. 

"COME,  NANON,  TAKE  AS   MUCH  AS  YOU  like"  (p.  24)        Frontispiece 

PAGB 
THE    DOOR   STOOD   AJAR;    SHE   THRUST    IT    OPEN     ....       125 

"DO   YOU    HEAR    WHAT    I    SAY?       GO  !  " I70 

HE   WOULD    SIT    FOR    WHOLE     HOURS    WITH     HIS    EYES     FIXED    ON 

THE    LOUIS 195 

Drawn  by  D.  Murray-Smith. 

"IS   THAT   M.    DIARD?"  .      '      .    , 293 

Drawn  by  IV.  Boucher. 


VOLUME   II. 

"DO  YOU  WANT   MONEY  FOR   SOME   OF   YOUR   POOR   PEOPLE?"        .  50 

"AH!     SAVE   HIS   SOUL  AT   LEAST!" IO7 

FARRABESCHE   LED   THE  WAY,   AND   VERONIQUE   FOLLOWED                .  1 74 

"SHE   IS   ONE    OF   THOSE   WOMEN   WHO   ARE    BORN    TO    REIGN  !  "       .  387 
Drawn  by  D.  Murray-Smith. 


PREFACE. 

With  "  Eugenie  Grandet,"  as  with  one  or  two,  but  only 
one  or  two  others  of  Balzac's  works,  we  come  to  a  case  of 
Quis  vituperavit?  Here,  and  perhaps  here  only,  with  "  Le 
Medecin  de  Campagne "  and  "  Le  Pere  Goriot,"  though 
there  may  be  carpers  and  depreciators,  there  are  no  open 
deniers  of  the  merit  of  the  work.  The  pathos  of  Eugenie,  the 
mastery  of  Grandet,  the  success  of  the  minor  characters,  espe- 
cially Nation,  are  universally  recognized.  The  importance 
of  the  work  has  sometimes  been  slightly  questioned  even  by 
those  who  admit  its  beauty :  but  this  questioning  can  only 
support  itself  on  the  unavowed  but  frequently  present  convic- 
tion or  suspicion  that  a  "good"  or  "goody"  book  must  be 
a  weak  one.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  book  can  be,  or  can  be 
asked  to  be,  better  than  perfect  on  its  own  scheme,  and  with 
its  own  conditions.  And  on  its  own  scheme  and  with  its  own 
conditions  "Eugenie  Grandet"  is  very  nearly  perfect. 

On  the  character  of  the  heroine  will  turn  the  final  decision 
whether,  as  has  been  said  by  some  (I  believe  I  might  be 
charged  with  having  said  it  myself),  Balzac's  virtuous  char- 
acters are  always  more  theatrical  than  real.  The  decision 
must  take  in  the  Benassis  of  "  Le  Medecin  de  Campagne," 
but  with  him  it  will  have  less  difficulty ;  for  Benassis,  despite 
the  beauty  and  pathos  of  his'  confession,  is  a  little  "  a  person 
of  the  boards"  in  his  unfailingly  providential  character  and 
his  complete  devotion  to  others.  Must  Eugenie,  his  feminine 
companion  in  goodness,  be  put  on  these  boards  likewise? 

I  admit  that  of  late  years,  and  more  particularly  since  the 
undertaking  of  this  present  task  made  necessary  to  me  a  more 
complete  and  methodical  study  of  the  whole  works,  including 

(ix) 


x  PREFACE, 

the  most  miscellaneous  miscellanies,  than  I  had  previously 
given,  my  estimate  of  Balzac's  goodness  has  gone  up  very 
much — that  of  his  greatness  had  no  need  of  raising.  But  I 
still  think  that  even  about  Eugenie  there  is  a  very  little  un- 
reality, a  slight  touch  of  that  ignorance  of  the  actual  nature 
of  girls  which  even  fervent  admirers  of  French  novelists  in 
general,  and  of  Balzac  in  particular,  have  confessed  to  finding 
in  them  and  him.  That  Eugenie  should  be  entirely  subju- 
gated first  by  the  splendor,  and  then  by  the  misfortune,  of 
her  Parisian  cousin,  is  not  in  the  least  unnatural ;  nor  do  I  for 
one  moment  pretend  to  deny  the  possibility  or  the  likelihood 

of  her  having 

"  lifted  up  her  eyes, 
And  loved  him  with  that  love  which  was  her  doom." 

It  is  also  difficult  to  make  too  much  allowance  for  the  fatal 
effect  of  an  education  under  an  insignificant  if  amiable  mother 
and  a  tyrannical  father,  and  of  a  confinement  to  an  excessively 
small  circle  of  extremely  provincial  society,  on  a  disposition 
of  more  nobility  than  intellectual  height  or  range.  Still  it 
must,  I  think,  be  permitted  to  the  advocatus  diaboli  to  urge 
that  Eugenie's  martyrdom  is  almost  too  thorough  ;  that  though 
complete,  it  is  not,  as  Gautier  said  of  his  own  ill  luck,  "artiste- 
ment  complet;"  that  though  it  may  be  difficult  to  put  the 
finger  on  any  special  blot,  to  say,  "  Here  the  girl  should  have 
revolted,"  or,  "  Here  she  would  have  behaved  in  some  other 
way  differently ;  "  still  there  is  a  vague  sense  of  incomplete 
lifelikeness — of  that  tendency  to  mirage  and  exaggeration 
which  has  been,  and  will  be,  so  often  noticed. 

Still  it  is  vague  and  not  unpleasantly  obtrusive,  and  in  all 
other  ways  Eugenie  is  a  triumph.  It  is  noticeable  that  her 
creator  has  dwelt  on  the  actual  traits  of  her  face  with  much 
more  distinctness  than  is  usual  with  him  ;  for  Balzac's  extra- 
ordinary minuteness  in  many  ways  does  not  invariably  extend 
to  physical  charms.  This  minuteness  is  indeed  so  great  that 
one  has  a  certain  suspicion  of  the  head  being  taken  from  a  live 


PREFACE*  m 

Unci  special  original.  Nor  is  her  physical  presence — abomin- 
ably libeled,  there  is  no  doubt,  by  Mme.  des  Grassins — the 
only  distinct  thing  about  Eugenie.  We  see  her  hovering 
about  the  beau  cousin  with  an  innocent  officiousness  capable 
of  committing  no  less  the  major  crime  of  lending  him  money 
than  the  minor,  but  even  more  audacious  because  open,  one 
of  letting  him  have  sugar.  She  is  perfectly  natural  in  the 
courage  with  which  she  bears  her  father's  unjust  rage,  and  in 
the  forgiveness  which,  quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  she  extends 
to  him  after  he  has  broken  her  own  peace  and  her  mother's 
heart.  It  is  perhaps  necessary  to  be  French  to  comprehend 
entirely  why  she  could  not  heap  that  magnificent  pile  of  coals 
of  fire  on  her  unworthy  cousin's  head  without  flinging  herself 
and  her  seventeen  millions  into  the  arms  of  somebody  else ; 
but  the  thing  can  be  accepted  if  not  quite  understood.  And 
the  whole  transaction  of  this  heaping  is  admirable. 

Nanon  is,  of  course,  quite  excellent.  She  is  not  stupid,  as 
her  kind  are  supposed  to  be;  she  is  only  blindly  faithful,  as 
well  as  thoroughly  good-hearted.  Nor  is  the  unfortunate 
Madame  Grandet  an  idiot,  nor  are  any  of  the  comparses  mere 
dummies.  But  naturally  they  all,  even  Eugenie  herself  to 
some  extent,  serve  mainly  as  set-offs  to  the  terrible  Grandet. 
In  him  Balzac,  a  Frenchman  of  Frenchmen,  has  boldly  de- 
picted perhaps  the  worst  and  the  commonest  vice  of  the 
French  character,  the  vice  which  is  more  common,  and  cer- 
tainly worse  than  either  the  frivolity  or  the  license  with  which 
the  nation  is  usually  charged — the  pushing,  to  wit,  of  thrift  to 
the  loathsome  excess  of  an  inhuman  avarice.  But  he  has  justi- 
fied himself  to  his  country  by  communicating  to  his  hero  an 
unquestioned  grandeur.  The  mirage  works  again,  but  it 
works  with  splendid  effect.  One  need  not  be  a  sentimentalist 
to  shudder  a  little  at  the  ta  ta  ta  ta  of  Grandet,  the  refrain  of 
a  money-grubbing  which  almost  escapes  greediness  by  its 
diabolical  extravagance  and  success. 

The  bibliography  of  "Eugenie  Grandet"  is  not  compli- 


xii  PREFACE. 

cated.  Balzac  tried  the  first  chapter  (there  were  originally 
seven)  in  Z' "Europe  Litteraire  for  September  19,  1833;  but 
he  did  not  continue  it  there,  and  it  appeared  complete  in  the 
first  volume  of  "  Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Province  "  next  year. 
Charpentier  republished  it  in  a  single  volume  in  1839.  The 
"  Comedie  "  engulfed  it  in  1843,  the  chapter  divisions  then 
disappearing. 

All  the  "  Marana  "  group  of  stories  appeared  together  in 
the  fourth  edition  of  the  "Philosophical  Studies,"  1835-1837. 
Most  of  them,  however,  had  earlier  appearances  in  periodicals 
and  in  the  Romans  ei  Contes  Philosophiques,  which  preceded 
the  "  Studies."  And  in  these  various  appearances  they' were 
subjected  to  their  author's  usual  processes  of  division  and  uni- 
fication, of  sub-titling  and  canceling  sub-titles.  "  Les  Ma- 
rana"  appeared  first  in  the  Revue  de  Paris  for  the  last  month 
of  1832  and  the  first  of  1833;  while  it  next  made  a  show, 
oddly  enough,  as  a  "  Scene  de  la  vie  Parisienne."  "Fare- 
well" (Adieu)  appeared  in  the  Mode  during  June,  1830,  and 
was  afterwards  for  a  time  a  "  Scene  de  la  vie  privee."  "  The 
Executioner"  (El  Verdugd)  was  issued  by  the  Mode  for  Jan- 
uary 29,  1830;  and  "A  Seaside  Tragedy"  (Un  Drame  au 
lord  de  la  mer)  appeared  nowhere  except  in  book  form  with 
its  companions  until  1843,  when  it  left  them  for  a  time  (after- 
wards to  return),  and  under  another  title  accompanied  several 
other  stories  in  a  separate  publication.  G.  S. 


EUGENIE  GRANDET. 

To  Maria. 

Your  portrait  is  the  fairest  orna?nent  of  this  book,  and 
here  it  is  fitting  that  your  name  should  be- set,  like  the 
branch  of  box  taken  from  some  unknown  garden  to  lie 
for  a  while  in  the  holy  water,  and  afterwards  set  by 
pious  hands  above  the  threshold,  where  the  green  spray, 
ever  renewed,  is  a  sacred  talisman  to  ward  off  all  evil 
from  the  house. 

In  some  country  towns  there  are  houses  more  depressing  to 
the  sight  than  the  dimmest  cloister,  the  most  melancholy 
ruins,  or  the  dreariest  stretch  of  sandy  waste.  Perhaps  such 
houses  combine  the  characteristics  of  all  the  three,  and  to  the 
dumb  silence  of  the  monastery  they  unite  the  gauntness  and 
grimness  of  the  ruin,  and  the  arid  desolation  of  the  waste. 
So  little  sign  is  there  of  life  or  of  movement  about  them,  that  a 
stranger  might  take  them  for  uninhabited  dwellings ;  but  the 
sound  of  an  unfamiliar  footstep  brings  some  one  to  the  window, 
a  passive  face  suddenly  appears  above  the  sill,  and  the  traveler 
receives  a  listless  and  indifferent  glance — it  is  almost  as  if  a 
monk  leaned  out  to  look  for  a  moment  on  the  world. 

There  is  one  particular  house  front  in  Saumur  which  pos- 
sesses all  these  melancholy  characteristics;  the  house  is  still 
standing  at  the  end  of  the  steep  street  which  leads  to  the 
castle,  at  the  upper  end  of  the  town.  The  street  is  very  quiet 
nowadays  ;  it  is  hot  in  summer  and  cold  in  winter,  and  very 
dark  in  places ;  besides  this,  it  is  remarkably  narrow  and 
crooked,  there  is  a  peculiarly  formal  and  sedate  air  about  its 
houses,  and  it  is  curious  how  every  sound  reverberates  through 
(1)* 


2  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

it — the  cobblestones  (always  clean  and  dry)  ring  with  every 
passing  footfall. 

This  is  the  oldest  part  of  the  town,  the  ramparts  rise  im- 
mediately above  it.  The  houses  of  the  quarter  have  stood 
for  three  centuries ;  and  albeit  they  are  built  of  wood,  they 
are  strong  and  sound  yet.  Each  house  has  a  certain  character 
of  its  own,  so  that  for  the  artist  and  antiquary  this  is  the  most 
attractive  part  of  the  town  of  Saumur.  Indeed,  it  would 
hardly  be  possible  to  go  past  the  house,  without  a  wondering 
glance  at  the  grotesque  figures  carved  on  the  projecting  ends 
of  the  huge  beams,  set  like  a  black  bas-relief  above  the  ground 
floor  of  almost  every  dwelling.  Sometimes,  where  these 
beams  have  been  protected  from  the  weather  by  slates,  a  strip 
of  dull  blue  runs  across  the  crumbling  walls,  and  crowning 
the  whole  is  a  high-pitched  roof  oddly  curved  and  bent  with 
age ;  the  shingle  boards  that  cover  it  are  all  warped  and 
twisted  by  the  alternate  sun  and  rain  of  many  a  year.  There 
are  bits  of  delicate  carving  too,  here  and  there,  though  you 
can  scarcely  make  them  out,  on  the  worn  and  blackened  window 
sills  that  seemed  scarcely  strong  enough  to  bear  the  weight  of 
the  red  flower-pot  in  which  some  poor  workwoman  has  set  her 
tree  carnation  or  her  monthly  rose. 

Still  further  along  the  street  there  are  more  pretentious 
house-doors  studded  with  huge  nails.  On  these  our  forefathers 
exercised  their  ingenuity,  tracing  hieroglyphs  and  mysterious 
signs  which  were  once  understood  in  every  household,  but  all 
clues  to  their  meaning  are  forgotten  now — they  will  be  under- 
stood no  more  of  any  mortal.  In  such  wise  would  a  Protestant 
make  his  profession  of  faith,  there  also  would  a  Leaguer  curse 
Henry  IV.  in  graven  symbols.  A  burgher  would  commem- 
orate his  civic  dignities,  the  glory  of  his  long-forgotten  tenure 
of  office  as  alderman  or  sheriff.  On  these  old  houses,  if  we 
could  but  read  it,  the  history  of  France  is  chronicled. 

Beside  the  rickety  little  tenement  built  of  wood,  with  ma- 
sonry of  the  roughest,  upon  the  wall  of  which  the  craftsman 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  3 

has  set  the  glorified  image  of  his  trade — his  plane — stands  the 
mansion  of  some  noble,  with  its  massive  round  arched  gate- 
way ;  you  can  still  see  some  traces  above  it  of  the  arms  borne 
by  the  owner,  though  they  have  been  torn  down  in  one  of  the 
many  revolutions  which  have  convulsed  the  country  since  1789.  - 

You  will  find  no  imposing  shop  windows  in  the  street ; 
strictly  speaking,  indeed,  there  are  no  shops  at  all,  for  the 
rooms  on  the  ground  floor  in  which  articles  are  exposed  for 
sale  are  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  workshops  of  the  times 
of  our  forefathers  ;  lovers  of  the  middle  ages  will  find  here 
the  primitive  simplicity  of  an  older  world.  The  low-ceiled 
rooms  are  dark,  cavernous,  and  guiltless  alike  of  plate-glass 
windows  or  of  showcases  ;  there  is  no  attempt  at  decoration  J 
either  within  or  without,  no  effort  is  made  to  display  the  wares. 
The  door,  as  a  rule,  is  heavily  barred  with  iron  and  divided  I 
into  two  parts ;  the  upper  half  is  thrown  back  during  the  day, 
admitting  fresh  air  and  daylight  into  the  damp  little  cave  ; 
while  the  lower  portion,  to  which  a  bell  is  attached,  is  seldom 
still.  The  shop  front  consists  of  a  low  wall  of  about  elbow 
height,  which  fills  half  the  space  between  floor  and  ceiling ; 
there  is  no  window  sash,  but  heavy  shutters  fastened  with  iron 
bolts  fit  into  a  groove  in  the  top  of  the  wall,  and  are  set  up  at 
night  and  taken  down  in  the  morning.  The  same  wall  serves 
as  a  counter  on  which  to  set  out  goods  for  the  customer's 
inspection.  There  is  no  sort  of  charlatanism  about  the  pro- 
ceeding. The  samples  submitted  to  the  public  vary  according 
to  the  nature  of  the  trade.  You  behold  a  keg  or  two  of  salt 
or  of  salted  fish,  two  "or  three  bales  of  sail-cloth  or  coils  of 
rope,  some  copper  wire  hanging  from  the  rafters,  a  few  cooper's 
hoops  on  the  walls,  or  a  length  or  two  of  cloth  upon  the 
shelves. 

You  go  in.  A  neat  and  tidy  damsel  with  a  pair  of  bare  red 
arms,  the  fresh  good  looks  of  youth,  and  a  white  handkerchief 
pinned  about  her  throat,  lays  down  her  knitting  and  goes  to 
summon  a  father  or  mother,  who  appears  and  sells  goods  to 


4  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

you  as  you  desire,  be  it  a  matter  of  two  sous  or  of  twenty 
thousand  francs;  the  manner  of  the  transaction  varying  as  the 
humor  of  the  vendor  is  surly,  obliging,  or  independent.  You 
will  see  a  dealer  in  barrel-staves  sitting  in  his  doorway,  twirl- 
ing his  thumbs  as  he  chats  with  a  neighbor;  judging  from 
appearances,  he  might  possess  nothing  in  this  world  but  the 
bottles  on  his  few  rickety  shelves  and  two  or  three  bundles  of 
laths;  but  his  well-stocked  timber-yard  on  the  quay  supplies 
all  the  coopers  in  Anjou,  he  knows  to  a  barrel-stave  how  many 
casks  he  can  "turn  out,"  as  he  says,  if  the  vines  do  well  and 
the  vintage  is  good  ;  a  few  scorching  days  and  his  fortune  is 
made,  a  rainy  summer  is  a  ruinous  thing  for  him  ;  in  a  single 
morning  the  price  of  puncheons  will  rise  as  high  as  eleven 
francs  or  drop  to  six.  ! 

Here,  as  in  Touraine,  the  whole  trade  of  the  district  de- 
pends upon  an  atmospherical  depression.  Landowners,  vine- 
growers,  timber  merchants,  coopers,  innkeepers  and  lighter- 
men, one  and  all  are  on  the  watch  for  a  ray  of  sunlight.  Not 
a  man  of  them  but  goes  to  bed  in  fear  and  trembling  lest  he 
should  hear  in  the  morning  that  there  has  been  a  frost  in  the 
night.  If  it  is  not  rain  that  they  dread,  it  is  wind  or  drought; 
they  must  have  cloudy  weather  or  heat,  and  the  rainfall  and 
the  weather  generally  all  arranged  to  suit  their  peculiar 
notions. 

Between  the  clerk  of  the  weather  and  the  vine-growing 
interest  there  is  a  duel  which  never  ceases.  Faces  visibly 
lengthen  or  shorten,  grow  bright  or  gloomy,  with  the  ups  and 
downs  of  the  barometer.  Sometimes  you  hear  from  one  end 
to  the  other  of  the  old  High  Street  of  Saumur  the  words, 
"  This  is  golden  weather  !  "  or  again,  in  language  which  like- 
wise is  no  mere  figure  of  speech,  "It  is  raining  gold  louis !  " 
and  they  all  know  the  exact  value  of  sun  or  rain  at  the  right 
moment. 

After  twelve  o'clock  or  so  on  a  Saturday  in  the  summer- 
time, you  will  not  do  a  pennyworth  of  business  among  the 


EUG&NIE   GRANDET.  5 

worthy  townsmen  of  Saumur.  Each  has  his  little  farm  and  his 
bit  of- vineyard,  and  goes  to  spend  the  "  week  end  "  in  the 
country.  As  everybody  knows  this  beforehand,  just  as  every- 
body knows  everybody  else's  business,  his  goings  and  comings, 
his  buyings  and  sellings,  and  profits  to  boot,  the  good  folk  are 
free  to  spend  ten  hours  out  of  the  twelve  in  making  up  pleasant 
little  parties,  in  taking  notes  and  making  comments,  and  keep- 
ing a  sharp  lookout  on  their  neighbors'  affairs.  The  mistress 
of  a  house  cannot  buy  a  partridge  but  the  neighbors  will 
inquire  of  her  husband  whether  the  bird  was  done  to  a  turn  ; 
no  damsel  can  put  her  head  out  of  the  window  without  being 
observed  by  every  group  of  unoccupied  observers. 

Impenetrable,  dark,  and  silent  as  the  houses  may  seem,  they 
contain  no  mysteries  hidden  from  public  scrutiny,  and  in  the 
same  way  every  one  knows  what  is  passing  in  every  one  else's 
mind.  To  begin  with,  the  good  folk  spend  most  of  their  lives 
out  of  doors;  they  sit  on  the  steps  of  their  houses,  breakfast 
there  and  dine  there,  and  adjust  any  little  family  differences 
in  the  doorway.  Every  passer-by  is  scanned  with  the  most 
minute  and  diligent  attention  ;  hence,  any  stranger  who  may 
happen  to  arrive  in  such  a  country  town  has,  in  a  manner,  to 
run  the  gantlet,  and  is  severely  quizzed  from  every  doorstep. 
By  dint  of  perseverance  in  the  methods  thus  indicated  a  quan- 
tity of  droll  stories  maybe  collected;  and,  indeed,  the  people 
of  Angers,  who  are  of  an  ingenious  turn,  and  quick  at  rep- 
artee, have  been  nicknamed  "the  tattlers"  on  these  very 
grounds. 

The  largest  houses  of  the  old  quarter  in  which  the  nobles 
once  dwelt  are  all  at  the  upper  end  of  the  street,  and  in  one 
of  these  the  events  took  place  which  are  about  to  be  narrated 
in  the  course  of  this  story.  As  has  been  already  said,  it  was 
a  melancholy  house,  a  venerable  relic  of  a  bygone  age,  built 
for  the  men  and  women  of  an  older  and  simpler  world,  from 
which  our  modern  France  is  farther  and  farther  removed  day 
by  day.      After  you   have   followed   for    some  distance   the 


\ 


6  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

windings  of  the  picturesque  street,  where  memories  of  the 
past  are  called  up  by  every  detail  at  every  turn,  till  at  length 
you  fall  unconsciously  to  musing,  you  come  upon  a  sufficiently 
gloomy  recess  in  which  a  doorway  is  dimly  visible,  the  door 
of  M.  Grande? s  house.  Of  all  the  pride  and  glory  of  propri- 
etorship conveyed  to  the  provincial  mind  by  those  three 
words,  it  is  impossible  to  give  any  idea,  except  by  giving  the 
biography  of  the  owner — M.  Grandet. 

M.  Grandet  enjoyed  a  certain  reputation  in  Saumur.  Its 
causes  and  effects  can  scarcely  be  properly  estimated  by  out- 
siders who  have  not  lived  in  a  country  town  for  a  longer  or 
shorter  time.  There  were  still  old  people  in  existence  who 
could  remember  former  times,  and  called  M.  Grandet  "  Good 
man  Grandet,"  but  there  were  not  many  of  them  left,  and 
they  were  rapidly  disappearing  year  by  year. 

In  1789  Grandet  was  a  master  cooper,  in  a  very  good  way 
of  business,  who  could  read  and  write  and  cast  accounts. 
When  the  French  Republic,  having  confiscated  the  lands  of 
the  Church  in  the  district  of  Saumur,  proceeded  to  sell  them 
by  auction,  the  cooper  was  forty  years  of  age,  and  had  just 
married  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  timber  merchant.  As 
Grandet  possessed  at  that  moment  his  wife's  dowry  as  well  as 
some  considerable  amount  of  ready  money  of  his  own,  he 
repaired  to  the  bureau  of  the  district ;  and  making  due  allow- 
ance for  two  hundred  double  louis  offered  by  his  father-in-law 
to  that  man  of  stern  morals,  the  Republican  who  conducted 
the  sale,  the  cooper  acquired  some  of  the  best  vineland  in 
the  neighborhood,  an  old  abbey,  and  a  few  little  farms,  for  an 
old  song,  to  all  of  which  property,  though  it  might  be  ill- 
gotten,  the  law  gave  him  a  clear  title. 

There  was  little  sympathy  felt  with  the  Revolution  in 
Saumur.  Goodman  Grandet  was  looked  upon  as  a  bold 
spirit,  a  Republican,  a  patriot,  an  "  advanced  thinker,"  and 
whatnot;  but  all  the  "thinking"  the  cooper  ever  did 
turned   simply  and   solely  on  the  subject  of  his  vines.     He 


EUG&N1E   GRANDET.  7 

Was  nominated  as  a  member  of  the  administration  of  the  dis- 
trict of  Saumur,  and  exercised  a  pacific  influence  both  in 
politics  and  in  commerce.  Politically,  he  befriended  the 
ci-devants,  and  did  all  that  he  could  to  prevent  the  sale  of 
their  property ;  commercially,  he  contracted  to  supply  two 
thousand  hogsheads  of  white  wine  to  the  Republican  armies, 
taking  his  payment  for  the  aforesaid  hogsheads  in  the  shape 
of  certain  acres  of  meadow  land  belonging  to  a  convent,  the 
property  of  the  nuns  having  been  reserved  till  the  last. 

In  the  days  of  the  Consulate,  Master  Grandet  became 
mayor;  acted  prudently  in  his  public  capacity,  and  did  very 
well  for  himself.  Times  changed,  the  Empire  was  established, 
and  he  became  Monsieur  Grandet.  But  M.  Grandet  had 
been  looked  upon  as  a  red  Republican,  and  Napoleon  had  no 
liking  for  Republicans,  so  the  mayor  was  replaced  by  a  large 
landowner,  a  man  with  a  de  before  his  name,  and  a  prospect 
of  one  day  becoming  a  baron  of  the  Empire.  M.  Grandet 
turned  his  back  upon  municipal  honors  without  a  shadow  of 
regret.  He  had  looked  well  after  the  interests  of  the  town 
during  his  term  of  office,  excellent  roads  had  been  made, 
passing  in  every  case  by  his  own  domains.  His  house  and 
land  had  been  assessed  very  moderately,  the  burden  of  the 
taxes  did  not  fall  too  grievously  upon  him ;  since  the  assess- 
ment, moreover,  he  had  given  ceaseless  attention  and  care  to 
the  cultivation  of  his  vines,  so  that  they  had  become  the  ttte 
du  pays,*  the  technical  term  for  those  vineyards  which  pro- 
duce wine  of  the  finest  quality.  He  had  a  fair  claim  to  the 
Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  and  he  received  it  in  1806. 

By  this  time  M.  Grandet  was  fifty-seven  years  old,  and  his 
wife  about  thirty-six.  The  one  child  of  the  marriage  was  a 
daughter,  a  little  girl  ten  years  of  age.  Providence  doubtless 
sought  to  console  M.  Grandet  for  his  official  downfall,  for  in 
this  year  he  succeeded  to  three  fortunes ;  the  total  value  was 
matter  of  conjecture,  no  certain  information  being  forthcom- 

*  Lit. :    Head  of  the  country. 


8  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

ing.  The  first  fell  in  on  the  death  of  Mme.  de  la  Gaudi- 
niere,  Mme.  Grandet's  mother;  the  deceased  lady  had  been 
a  de  la  Bertelliere,  and  her  father,  old  M.  de  la  Bertelliere, 
soon  followed  her  ;  the  third  in  order  was  Mme.  Gentillet, 
M.  Grandet's  grandmother  on  the  mother's  side.  Old  M.  de 
la  Bertelliere  used  to  call  an  investment  "throwing  money 
away;"  the  sight  of  his  hoards  of  gold  repaid  him  better 
than  any  rate  of  interest  upon  it.  The  town  of  Saumur, 
therefore,  roughly  calculated  the  value  of  the  amount  that  the 
late  de  la  Bertelliere  was  likely  to  have  saved  out  of  his 
yearly  takings  ;  and  M.  Grandet  received  a  new  distinction 
which  none  of  our  manias  for  equality  can  efface — he  paid 
more  taxes  than  any  one  else  in  the  country  round. 

He  now  cultivated  a  hundred  acres  of  vineyard  ;  in  a  good 
year  they  would  yield  seven  or  eight  hundred  puncheons. 
He  had  thirteen  little  farms,  an  old  abbey  (motives  of 
economy  had  led  him  to  wall  up  the  windows,  and  so  preserve 
the  traceries  and  stained  glass),  and  a  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  acres  of  grazing  land,  in  which  three  thousand  poplars, 
planted  in  1793,  were  growing  taller  and  larger  every  year. 
Finally,  he  owned  the  house  in  which  he  lived. 

In  these  visible  ways  his  prosperity  had  increased.  As 
to  his  capital,  there  were  only  two  people  in  a  position  to 
make  a  guess  at  its  probable  amount.  One  of  these  was  the 
notary,  M.  Cruchot,  who  transacted  all  the  necessary  business 
whenever  M.  Grandet  made  an  investment  ;  and  the  other 
was  M.  des  Grassins,  the  wealthiest  banker  in  the  town,  who 
did  Grandet  many  good  offices  which  were  unknown  to 
Saumur.  Secrets  of  this  nature,  involving  extensive  business 
transactions,  are  usually  well  kept ;  but  the  discreet  caution 
of  MM.  Cruchot  and  des  Grassins  did  not  prevent  them  from 
addressing  M.  Grandet  in  public  with  such  profound  deference 
that  close  observers  might  draw  their  own  conclusions. 
Clearly  the  wealth  of  their  late  mayor  must  be  prodigious 
indeed  that  he  should  receive  such  obsequious  attention. 


EUG&NIE    GRAND ET.  9 

There  was  no  one  in  Saumui  who  did  not  fully  believe  the 
report  which  told  how,  in  a  secret  hiding-place,  M.  Grandet 
had  a  hoard  of  louis,  and  how  every  night  he  went  to  look  at 
it,  and  gave  himself  up  to  the  inexpressible  delight  of  gazing 
at  the  huge  heap  of  gold.  He  was  not  the  only  money-lover 
in  Saumuf.  Sympathetic  observers  looked  at  his  eyes  and 
felt  that  the  story  was  true,  for  they  seemed  to  have  the  yellow 
metallic  glitter  of  the  coin  over  which  it  was  said  they  had. 
brooded.  Nor  was  this  the  only  sign.  Certain  small  inde- 
finable habits,  furtive  movements,  slight  mysterious  prompt- 
ings of  greed  did  not  escape  the  keen  observation  of  fellow- 
worshipers.  There  is  something  vulpine  about  the  eyes  of  a 
man  who  lends  money  at  an  exorbitant  rate  of  interest;  they 
gradually  and  surely  contract  like  those  of  the  gambler,  the 
sensualist,  or  the  courtier ;  and  there  is,  so  to  speak,  a  sort  of 
freemasonry  among  the  passions,  a  written  language  of  hiero- 
glyphs and  signs  for  those  who  can  read  them. 

M.  Grandet  therefore  inspired  in  all  around  him  the  re- 
spectful esteem  which  is  but  the  due  of  a  man  who  has  never 
owed  any  one  a  farthing  in  his  life  ;  a  just  and  legitimate 
tribute  to  an  astute  old  cooper  and  vine-grower  who  knew  be- 
forehand with  the  certainty  of  an  astronomer  when  five  hun- 
dred casks  would  serve  for  the  vintage,  and  when  to  have  a 
thousand  in  readiness;  a  man  who  had  never  lost  on  any 
speculation,  who  had  always  a  stock  of  empty  barrels  when- 
ever casks  were  so  dear  that  they  fetched  more  than  the 
contents  were  worth  ;  who  could  store  his  vintage  in  his  own 
cellars,  and  afford  to  bide  his  time,  so  that  his  puncheons 
would  bring  him  in  a  couple  of  hundred  francs,  while  many 
a  little  proprietor  who  could  not  wait  had  to  be  content  with 
half  that  amount.  His  famous  vintage  in  the  year  1811, 
discreetly  held,  and  sold  only  as  good  opportunities  offered, 
had  been  worth  two  hundred  and :  forty  thousand  livres  to 
him. 

In    matters   financial   M.   Grandet   might   be  described   as 


10  EUG&N1E    GRAND ET. 

combining  the  characteristics  of  the  Bengal  tiger  and  the  boa 
constrictor.  He  could  lay  low  and  wait,  crouching,  watching 
for  his  prey,  and  make  his  spring  unerringly  at  last;  then  the 
jaws  of  his  purse  would  unclose,  a  torrent  of  coin  would  be 
swallowed  down,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the  gorged  reptile, 
there  would  be  a  period  of  inaction  ;  like  the  serpent,  more- 
over, he  was  cold,  apathetic,  methodical,  keeping  to  his  own 
mysterious  times  and  seasons. 

No  one  could  see  the  man  pass  without  feeling  a  certain 
kind  of  admiration,  which  was  half-dread,  half-respect.  The 
tiger's  clutch  was  like  steel,  his  claws  were  sharp  and  swift ; 
was  there  any  one  in  Saumur  who  had  not  felt  them  ?  Such 
an  one,  for  instance,  wanted  to  borrow  money  to  buy  that 
piece  of  land  which  he  had  set  his  heart  upon  ;  M.  Cruchot 
had  found  the  money  for  him — at  eleven  per  cent.  And 
there  was  So-and-so  yonder ;  M.  des  Grassins  had  discounted 
his  bills,  but  it  was  at  a  ruinous  rate. 

There  were  not  many  days  when  M.  Grandet's  name  did 
not  come  up  in  conversation,  in  familiar  talk  in  the  evenings, 
or  in  the  gossip  of  the  town.  There  were  people  who  took  a 
kind  of  patriotic  pride  in  the  old  vine-grower's  wealth.  More 
than  one  innkeeper  or  merchant  had  found  occasion  to  remark 
to  a  stranger  with  a  certain  complacency,  "  There  are  mil- 
lionaires in  two  or  three  of  our  firms  here,  sir;  but  as  for  M. 
Grandet,  he  himself  could  hardly  tell  you  how  much  he  was 
worth!  " 

In  1816  the  shrewdest  heads  in  Saumur  set  down  the  value 
of  the  cooper's  landed  property  at  about  four  millions  ;  but 
as,  to  strike  a  fair  average,  he  must  have  drawn  something 
like  a  hundred  thousand  francs  (they  thought)  from  his  prop- 
erty between  the  years  1793  and  1817,  the  amount  of  money 
he  possessed  must  nearly  equal  the  value  of  the  land.  So 
when  M.  Grandet's  name  was  mentioned  over  a  game  at 
boston,  or  a  chat  about  the  prospects  of  the  vines,  these  folk 
would  look  wise  and  remark,  "  Who  is  that  you  are  talking 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  11 

of?  Old  Grandet?  Old  Grandet  must  have  five  or  six 
millions,  there  is  no  doubt  about  it." 

"  Then  you  are  cleverer  than  lam;  I  have  never  been  able 
to  find  out  how  much  he  has,"  M.  Cruchot  or  M.  des 
Grassins  would  put  in,  if  they  overheard  the  speech. 

If  any  one  from  "Paris  mentioned  the  Rothschilds  or  M. 
Laffitte,  the  good  people  in  Saumur  would  ask  if  any  of  those 
persons  were  as  rich  as  M.  Grandet  r  And  if  the  Parisian 
should  answer  in  the  affirmative  with  a  pitying  smile,  they 
looked  at  one  another  incredulously  and  flung  up  their  heads. 
So  great  a  fortune  was  like  a  golden  mantle ;  it  covered  its 
owner  and  all  that  he  did.  At  one  time  some  of  the  eccen- 
tricities of  his  mode  of  life  gave  rise  to  laughter  at  his 
expense;  but  the  satire  and  the  laughter  had  died  out,  and 
M.  Grandet  still  went  his  way,  till  at  last  even  his  slightest 
actions  came  to  be,  taken  as  precedents,  and  every  trifling 
thing  he  said  or  did  carried  weight.  His  remarks,  his  cloth- 
ing, his  gestures,  the  way  he  blinked  his  eyes,  had  all  been 
studied  with  the  care  with  which  a  naturalist  studies  the  work- 
ings of  instinct  in  some  wild  creature  ;  and  no  one  failed  to 
discern  the  taciturn  and  profound  wisdom  that  underlay  all 
these  manifestations. 

"We  shall  have  a  hard  winter,"  they  would  say;  "old 
Grandet  has  put  on  his  fur  gldves,  we  must  gather  the  grapes," 
Or,  "Goodman  Grandet  is  laying  in  a  lot  of  cask  staves; 
there  will  be  plenty  of  wine  this  year." 

M.  Grandet  never  bought  either  meat  or  bread.  Part  of 
his  rents  were  paid  in  kind,  and  every  week  his  tenants 
brought  in  poultry,  eggs,  butter,  and  wheat  sufficient  for  the 
needs  of  his  household.  Moreover,  he  owned  a  mill,  and  the 
miller,  besides  paying  rent,  came  over  to  fetch  a  certain 
quantity  of  corn,  and  brought  him  back  both  the  bran  and 
the  flour.  Big  Nanon,  the  one  maidservant,  baked  all  the 
bread  once  a  week  on  Saturday  mornings  (though  she  was  not 
so  young  as  she  had  been).     Others  of   the   tenants  were 


12  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

market  gardeners,  and  M.  Grandet  had  arranged  that  these 
were  to  keep  him  supplied  with  fresh  vegetables.  Of  fruit 
there  was  no  lack;  indeed,  he  sold  a  good  deal  of  it  in  the 
market.  Firewood  was  gathered  from  his  own  hedges,  or 
taken  from  old  stumps  of  trees  that  grew  by  the  sides  of  his 
fields.  His  tenants  chopped  up  the  wood,  carted  it  into  the 
town,  and  obligingly  stacked  his  faggots  for  him,  receiving  in 
return — his  thanks.  So  he  seldom  had  occasion  to  spend 
money.  His  only  known  items  of  expenditure  were  for  sacra- 
mental bread,  for  sittings  in  the  church  for  his  wife  and 
daughter,  their  dress,  Nanon's  wages,  renewals  of  the  linings 
of  Nanon's  saucepans,  repairs  about  the  house,  candles,  rates 
and  taxes,  and  the  necessary  outlays  of  money  for  improve- 
ments. He  had  recently  acquired  six  hundred  acres  of  wood- 
land, and,  being  unable  to  look  after  it  himself,  had  induced 
a  keeper  belonging  to  a  neighbor  to  attend  to  it,  promising  to 
repay  the  man  for  his  trouble.  After  this  purchase  had  been 
made,  and  not  before,  game  appeared  on  the  Grandets'  table. 
Grandet's  manners  were  distinctly  homely.  He  did  not  say 
very  much.  He  expressed  his  ideas,  as  a  rule,  in  brief,  sen- 
tentious phrases,  uttered  in  a  low  voice.  Since  the  time  of 
the  Revolution,  when  for  a  while  he  had  attracted  some  atten- 
tion, the  worthy  man  had  contracted  a  tiresome  habit  of 
stammering  as  soon  as  he  took  part  in  a  discussion  or  began 
to  speak  at  any  length.  He  had  other  peculiarities.  He 
habitually  drowned  his  ideas  in  a  flood  of  words  more  or  less 
incoherent ;  his  singular  inaptitude  for  reasoning  logically  was 
usually  set  down  to  a  defective  education  ;  but  this,  like  his 
unwelcome  fluency,  the  trick  of  stammering,  and  various 
other  mannerisms,  was  assumed,  and  for  reasons  which,  in  the 
course  of  the  story,  will  be  made  sufficiently  clear.  In  con- 
versation, moreover,  he  had  other  resources  :  four  phrases, 
like  algebraical  formulae,  which  fitted  every  case,  were  always 
forthcoming  to  solve  every  knotty  problem  in  business  or 
domestic  life — "I  do  not  know,"  "I  cannot  do  it,"  "I  will 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  13 

have  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  and  "  We  shall  see."  He  never 
committed  himself;  he  never  said  yes  or  no;  he  never  put 
anything  down  in  writing.  He  listened  with  apparent  indif- 
ference when  he  was  spoken  to,  caressing  his  chin  with  his 
right  hand,  while  the  back  of  his  left  supported  his  elbow. 
When  once  he  had  formed  his  opinion  in  any  matter  of  busi- 
ness, he  never  changed  it ;  but  he  pondered  long  even  over 
the  smallest  transactions.  When  in  the  course  of  deep  and 
weighty  converse  he  had  managed  to  fathom  the  intentions  of 
an  antagonist,  who  meanwhile  flattered  himself  that  he  at 
last  knew  where  to  have  Grandet,  the  latter  was  wont  to  say, 
"  I  must  talk  it  over  with  my  wife  before  I  can  give  a  definite 
answer."  In  business  matters  the  wife,  whom  he  had  reduced 
to  the  most  abject  submission,  was  unquestionably  a  most  con- 
venient support  and  screen. 

He  never  paid  visits,  never  dined  away  from  home,  nor 
asked  any  one  to  dinner ;  his  movements  were  almost  noise- 
less ;  he  seemed  to  carry  out  his  principles  of  economy  in 
everything;  to  make  no  useless  sound,  to  be  chary  of  spend- 
ing even  physical  energy.  His  respect  for  the  rights  of 
ownership  was  so  habitual  that  he  never  displaced  nor  dis- 
turbed anything  belonging  to  another.  And  yet,  in  spite  of 
the  low  tones  of  his  voice,  in  spite  of  his  discretion  and 
cautious  bearing,  the  cooper's  real  character  showed  itself  in 
his  language  and  manners,  and  this  was  more  especially  the 
case  in  his  own  house,  where  he  was  less  on  his  guard  than 
elsewhere. 

As  to  Grandet's  exterior.  He  was  a  broad,  square-shoul- 
dered, thick-set  man,  about  five  feet  high ;  his  legs  were  thin 
(he  measured  perhaps  twelve  inches  round  the  calves),  his 
knee-joints  large  and  prominent.  He  had  a  bullet-shaped 
head,  a  sun-burned  face,  scarred  with  the  smallpox,  and  a 
narrow  chin  ;  there  was  no  trace  of  a  curve  about  the  lines  of 
his  mouth.  He  possessed  a  set  of  white  teeth,  eyes  with  the 
expression  of  stony  avidity  in  them  with  which  the  basilisk  is 


14  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

credited,  a  deeply- furrowed  brow  on  which  there  were  promi- 
nences not  lacking  in  significance,  hair  that  had  once  been  of 
a  sandy  hue,  but  which  was  now  fast  turning  gray  ;  so  that 
thoughtless  youngsters,  rash  enough  to  make  jokes  on  so 
serious  a  subject,  would  say  that  M.  Grandet's  very  hair  was 
"gold  and  silver."  On  his  nose,  which  was  broad  and  blunt 
at  the  tip,  was  a  variegated  wen  ;  gossip  affirmed,  not  without 
some  appearance  of  truth,  that  spite  and  rancor  were  the  cause 
of  this  affection.  There  was  a  dangerous  cunning  about  this 
face,  although  the  man,  indeed,  was  honest  according  to  the 
letter  of  the  law ;  it  was  a  selfish  face ;  there  were  but  two 
things  in  the  world  for  which  its  owner  cared — the  delights 
of  hoarding  wealth,  in  the  first  place,  and,  in  the  second,  the 
only  being  who  counted  for  anything  in  his  estimation,  his 
daughter  Eugenie,  his  only  child,  who  one  day  should  inherit 
that  wealth.  His  attitude,  manner,  bearing,  and  everything 
about  him  plainly  showed  that  he  had  the  belief  in  himself 
which  is  the  natural  outcome  of  an  unbroken  record  of  suc- 
cessful business  speculations.  Pliant  and  smooth-spoken 
though  he  might  appear  to  be,  M.  Grandet  was  a  man  of 
bronze.  He  was  always  dressed  after  the  same  fashion  ;  in 
1819  he  looked  in  this  respect  exactly  as  he  had  looked  at  any 
time  since  1791.  His  heavy  shoes  were  secured  by  leather 
laces ;  he  wore  thick  woolen  stockings  all  the  year  round, 
knee  breeches  of  chestnut  brown  homespun,  silver  buckles,  a 
brown  velvet  waistcoat  adorned  with  yellow  stripes  and  but- 
toned up  to  the  throat,  a  loosely-fitting  coat  with  ample  skirts, 
a  black  cravat,  and  a  broad-brimmed  Quaker-like  hat.  His 
gloves,  like  those  of  the  gendarmerie,  were  chosen  with  a 
view  to  hard  wear ;  a  pair  lasted  him  nearly  two  years.  In 
order  to  keep  them  clean,  he  always  laid  them  down  on  the 
same  place  on  the  brim  of  his  hat,  till  the  action  had  come  to 
be  mechanical  with  him.  So  much,  and  no  more,  Saumur 
knew  of  this  her  citizen. 

A  few  fellow-townspeople,  six  in  all,  had  the  right  of  entry 


EUG&NIE    GRANDET.  15 

to  Grandet's  house  and  society.  First  among  these  in  order 
of  importance  was  M.  Cruchot's  nephew.  Ever  since  his  ap- 
pointment as  president  of  the  court  of  first  instance,  this  young 
man  had  added  the  appellation  "  de  Bonfons  "  to  his  original 
name  of  Cruchot;  in  time  he  hoped  that  the  Bonfons  would 
efface  the  Cruchot,  when  he  meant  to  drop  the  Cruchot 
altogether,  and  was  at  no  little  pains  to  compass  this  end. 
Already  he  styled  himself  C.  de  Bonfons.  Any  litigant  who 
was  so  ill  inspired  as  to  address  him  in  court  as  "  M.  Cruchot  " 
was  soon  made  painfully  aware  that  he  had  blundered.  The 
magistrate  was  about  thirty-three  years  of  age,  and  the  owner 
of  the  estate  of  Bonfons  {Boni  Fontis),  which  brought  in 
annually  seven  thousand  livres.  In  addition  to  this  he  had 
prospects ;  he  would  succeed  some  day  to  the  property  of  his 
uncle  the  notary,  and  there  was  yet  another  uncle  besides,  the 
Abbe  Cruchot,  a  dignitary  of  the  chapter  of  Saint  Martin  of 
Tours;  both  relatives  were  commonly  reported  to  be  men 
of  substance.  The  three  Cruchots,  with  a  goodly  number 
of  kinsfolk,  connected  too  by  marriage  with  a  score  of  other 
houses,  formed  a  sort  of  party  in  the  town,  like  the  family  of 
the  Medicis  in  Florence  long  ago ;  and,  like  the  Medicis,  the 
Cruchots  had  their  rivals — their  Pazzi. 

Mme.  des  Grassins,  the  mother  of  a  son  twenty-three  years 
of  age,  came  assiduously  to  take  a  hand  at  cards  with  Mme. 
Grandet,  hoping  to  marry  her  own  dear  Adolphe  to  Made- 
moiselle Eugenie.  She  had  a  powerful  ally  in  her  husband  the 
banker,  who  had  secretly  rendered  the  old  miser  many  a  ser- 
vice, and  who  could  give  opportune  aid  on  her  field  of  battle. 
The  three  des  Grassins  had  likewise  their  host  of  adherents, 
their  cousins  and  trusty  auxiliaries. 

The  Abbe  (the  Talleyrand  of  the  Cruchot  faction),  well 
supported  by  his  brother  the  notary,  closely  disputed  the 
ground  with  the  banker's  wife ;  they  meant  to  carry  off  the 
wealthy  heiress  for  their  nephew  the  president.  The  struggle 
between  the  two  parties  for  the  prize  of  the  hand  of  Eugenie 


16  EUG&NIE  grandet. 

Grandet  was  an  open  secret;  all  Saumur  watched  it  with  the 
keenest  interest.  Which  would  Mile.  Grandet  marry?  Would 
it  be  M.  le  President  or  M.  Adolphe  des  Grassins  ?  Some  solved 
the  problem  by  saying  that  M. Grandet  would  give  his  daughter 
to  neither.  The  old  cooper  (said  they)  was  consumed  with 
an  ambition  to  have  a  peer  of  France  for  his  son-in-law,  and 
he  was  on  the  lookout  for  a  peer  of  France,  who  for  the  con- 
sideration of  an  income  of  three  hundred  thousand  livres 
would  find  all  the  past,  present,  and  future  barrels  of  the 
Grandets  no  obstacle  to  a  match.  Others  demurred  to  this, 
and  urged  that  both  M.  and  Mme.  des  Grassins  came  of  a 
good  family,  that  they  had  wealth  enough  for  anything,  that 
Adolphe  was  a  very  good-looking,  pretty  behaved  young  man, 
and  that  unless  the  Grandets  had  a  Pope's  nephew  somewhere 
in  the  background,  they  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  a  match  in 
every  way  so  suitable  ;  for  they  were  nobodies  after  all ;  all 
Saumur  had  seen  Grandet  going  about  with  an  adze  in  his 
hands,  and,  moreover,  he  had  worn  the  red  cap  of  Liberty  in 
his  time. 

The  more  astute  observers  remarked  that  M.  Cruchot  de 
Bonfons  was  free  of  the  house  in  the  High  Street,  while  his  rival 
only  visited  there  on  Sundays.  Some  maintained  that  Mme. 
des  Grassins,  being  on  more  intimate  terms  with  the  women 
of  the  house,  had  opportunities  of  inculcating  certain  ideas 
which  sooner  or  later  must  conduce  to  her  success.  Others 
retorted  that  the  Abbe  Cruchot  had  the  most  insinuating  man- 
ner in  the  world,  and  that  with  a  churchman  on  one  side  and 
a  woman  on  the  other  the  chances  were  about  even. 

"It  is  gown  against  cassock,"  said  a  local  wit. 

Those  whose  memories  went  farther  back  said  that  the 
Grandets  were  too  prudent  to  let  all  that  property  go  out  of 
the  family.  Mile.  Eugenie  Grandet  of  Saumur  would  be 
married  one  of  these  days  to  the  son  of  the  other  M.  Grandet 
of  Paris,  a  rich  wholesale  wine  merchant.  To  these  both 
Cruchotins  and  Grassinistes  were  wont  to  reply  as  follows : 


EUG&N1E   GRAND ET.  17 

"In  the  first  place,  the  brothers  have  not  met  twice  in 
thirty  years.  Then  M.  Grandet  of  Paris  is  ambitious  for  that 
son  of  his.  He  himself  is  mayor  of  his  division  of  the  depart- 
ment, a  deputy,  a  colonel  of  the  National  Guard,  and  a  judge 
of  the  tribunal  of  commerce.  He  does  not  own  to  any  rela- 
tionship with  the  Grandets  of  Saumur,  and  is  seeking  to  con- 
nect himself  with  one  of  Napoleon's  dukes." 

What  will  not  people  say  of  an  heiress?  Eugenie  Grandet 
was  a  stock  subject  of  conversation  for  twenty  leagues  round  ; 
nay,  in  public  conveyances,  even  as  far  as  Angers  on  the  one 
hand  and  Blois  on  the  other ! 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1811  the  Crucholins  gained  a 
signal  victory  over  the  Grassinistes.  The  young  Marquis  de 
Froidfond  being  compelled  to  realize  his  capital,  the  estate 
of  Froidfond,  celebrated  for  its  park  and  its  handsome  chateau, 
was  for  sale;  together  with  its  dependent  farms,  rivers,  fish- 
ponds, and  forest ;  altogether  it  was  worth  three  million  francs. 
M.  Cruchot,  President  Cruchot,  and  the  Abbe  Cruchot  by 
uniting  their  forces  had  managed  to  prevent  a  proposed 
division  into  small  lots.  The  notary  made  an  uncommonly 
good  bargain  for  his  client,  representing  to  the  young  Marquis 
that  the  purchase  money  of  the  small  lots  could  only  be  col- 
lected after  endless  trouble  and  expense,  and  that  he  would 
have  to  sue  a  large  proportion  of  the  purchasers  for  it ;  while 
here  was  M.  Grandet,  a  man  whose  credit  stood  high,  and 
who  was  moreover  ready  to  pay  for  the  land  at  once  in  hard 
coin,  it  would  be  better  to  take  M.  Grandet's  offer.  In  this 
way  the  fair  marquisate  of  Froidfond  was  swallowed  down  by 
M.  Grandet,  who,  to  the  amazement  of  Saumur,  paid  for  it  in 
ready  money  (deducting  discount  of  course)  as  soon  as  the 
required  formalities  were  completed.  The  news  of  this  trans- 
action traveled  far  and  wide  ;  it  reached  Orleans,  it  was  spoken 
of  at  Nantes. 

M.  Grandet  went  to  see  his  chateau,  and  on  this  wise :  a 
cart  happened  to  be  returning  thither,  so  he  embraced  this 


18  MWiMfM  G&AN3MT* 

opportunity  of  visiting  his  newly- acquired  property,  and  took 
a  look  round  in  the  capacity  of  owner.  Then  he  returned  to 
Saumur,  well  convinced  that  this  investment  would  bring  him 
in  a  clear  five  per  cent.,  and  fired  with  a  magnificent  ambi- 
tion ;  he  would  add  his  own  bits  of  land  to  the  marquisate  of 
Froidfond,  and  everything  should  lie  within  a  ring  fence. 
For  the  present.he  would  set  himself  to  replenish  his  almost 
exhausted  coffers ;  he  would  cut  down  every  stick  of  timber  in 
his  copses  and  forests,  and  fell  the  poplars  in  his  meadows. 

It  is  easy  after  this  explanation  .to  understand  all  that  was 
i  conveyed  by  the  words,  "  M.  Grandet's  house" — the  cold, 
J  dreary,  and  silent  house  at  the  upper  end  of  the  town,  under 
the  shadow  of  the  ruined  ramparts. 

Two  pillars  supported  the  arch  above  the  doorway,  and  for 
these,  as  also  for  the  building  of  the  house  itself,  a  porous 
crumbling  stone  peculiar  to  the  district  along  the  banks  of  the 
Loire  had  been  employed,  a  kind  of  tufa  so  soft  that  at  most 
it  scarcely  lasts  for  two  hundred  years.  Rain  and  frost  had 
gnawed  numerous  irregular  holes  in  the  surface,  with  a  curious 
effect ;  the  piers  and  the  voussoirs  looked  as  though  they  were 
composed  of  the  vermicular  stones  often  met  with  in  French 
architecture.  The  doorway  might  have  been  the  portal  of  a 
gaol.  Above  the  arch  there  was  a  long  sculptured  bas-relief 
of  harder  stone,  representing  the  four  seasons,  four  forlorn  fig- 
ures, aged,  blackened,  and  weather-worn.  Above  the  bas- 
relief  there  was  a  projecting  ledge  of  masonry  where  some 
chance-sown  plants  had  taken  root;  yellow  pellitory,  bind- 
weed, a  plantain  or  two,  and  a  little  cherry  tree,  that  even 
now  had  reached  a  fair  height. 

The  massive  door  itself  was  of  dark  oak,  shrunk  and  warped, 
and  full  of  cracks;  but,  feeble  as  it  looked,  it  was  firmly  held 
together  by  a  series  of  iron  nails  with  huge  heads,  driven  into 
the  wood  in  a  symmetrical  design.  In  the  middle  there  was 
a  small  square  grating  covered  with  rusty  iron  bars,  which 
served  as  an  excuse  for  a  door  knocker  which  hung  there  from 


RUgAMM  GkANfi£T.  i§ 

a  ring,  and  struck  upon  the  menacing  head  a  great  iron  bolt. 
The  knocker  itself,  oblong  in  shape,  was  of  the  kind  that  our 
ancestors  used  to  call  a  "  Jaquemart,"  and  not  unlike  a  huge 
note  of  admiration.  If  an  antiquary  had  examined  it  care- 
fully, he  might  have  found  some  traces  of  the  grotesque  human 
head  that  it  once  represented,  but  the  features  of  the  typical 
clown  had  long  since  been  effaced  by  constant  wear.  The 
little  grating  had  been  made  in  past  times  of  civil  war,  so  that 
the  household  might  recognize  their  friends  without  before 
admitting  them,  but  now  it  afforded  to  inquisitive  eyes  a  view 
of  a  dank  and  gloomy  archway,  and  a  flight  of  broken  steps 
leading  to  a  not  unpicturesque  garden  shut  in  by  thick  walls 
through  which  the  damp  was  oozing,  and  a  hedge  of  sickly- 
looking  shrubs.  The  walls  were  part  of  the  old  fortifications, 
and  up  above  on  the  ramparts  there  were  yet  other  gardens 
belonging  to  some  of  the  neighboring  houses. 

A  door  beneath  the  arch  of  the  gateway  opened  into  a  large 
parlor,  the  principal  room  on  the  ground  floor.  Few  people 
comprehend  the  importance  of  this  apartment  in  little  towns 
in  Anjou,  Berri,  and  Touraine.  The  parlor  is  also  the  hall, 
drawing-room,  study,  and  boudoir  all  in  one;  it  is  the  stage 
on  which  the  drama  of  domestic  life  is  played,  the  very  heart 
and  centre  of  the  home.  Hither  the  hairdresser  repaired  once 
in  six  months  to  cut  M.  Grandet's  hair.  The  tenants  and  the 
cure,  the  sous-prefet,  and  the  miller's  lad  were  all  alike  shown 
into  this  room.  There  were  two  windows  which  looked  out 
upon  the  street,  the  floor  was  boarded,  the  walls  were  paneled 
from  floor  to  ceiling,  covered  with  old  carvings,  and  painted 
gray.  The  rafters  were  left  visible,  and  were  likewise  painted 
gray,  the  plaster  in  intervening  spaces  was  yellow  with  age. 

An  old  brass  clock-case  inlaid  with  arabesques  in  tortoise- 
shell  stood  on  the  chimney-piece,  which  was  of  white  stone, 
and  adorned  with  rude  carvings.  Above  it  stood  a  mirror  of 
a  greenish  hue,  the  edges  were  beveled  in  order  to  display 
the  thickness  of  the  glass,  and  reflected  a  thin  streak  of  col- 


20  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

ored  light  into  the  room,  which  was  caught  again  by  the  pol- 
ished surface  of  another  mirror  of  Damascus  steel,  which  hung 
upon  the  wall. 

Two  branched  sconces  of  gilded  copper  which  adorned 
either  end  of  the  chimney-piece  answered  a  double  purpose. 
The  branch  roses  which  served  as  candle-sockets  were  remov- 
able, and  the  main  stem,  fitted  into  an  antique  copper  contri- 
vance on  a  bluish  marble  pedestal,  did  duty  as  a  candlestick 
for  ordinary  days. 

The  old-fashioned  chairs  were  covered  with  tapestry,  on 
which  the  fables  of  La  Fontaine  were  depicted ;  but  a  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  the  author  was  required  to  make  out  the 
subjects,  for  the  colors  had  faded  badly,  and  the  outlines  of 
the  figures  were  hardly  visible  through  a  multitude  of  darns. 
Four  sideboards  occupied  the  four  corners  of  the-  room,  each 
of  these  articles  of  furniture  terminating  in  a  tier  of  very  dirty 
shelves.  An  old  inlaid  card-table  with  a  chess-board  marked 
out  upon  its  surface  stood  in  the  space  between  the  two  win- 
dows, and  on  the  wall,  above  the  table,  hung  an  oval  baro- 
meter in  a  dark  wooden  setting,  adorned  by  a  carved  bunch 
of  ribbons ;  they  had  been  gilt  ribbons  once  upon  a  time,  but 
generations  of  flies  had  wantonly  obscured  the  gilding,  till  its 
existence  had  become  problematical.  Two  portraits  in  pastel 
hung  on  the  wall  opposite  the  fireplace.  One  was  believed 
to  represent  Mme.  Grandet's  grandfather,  old  M.  de  la  Ber- 
telliere,  as  a  lieutenant  in  the  Guards,  and  the  other  the  late 
Mme.  Gentillet,  as  a  shepherdess. 

Crimson  curtains  of  gros  de  Tours  were  hung  in  the  windows 
and  fastened  back  with  silk  cords  and  huge  tassels.  This  luxu- 
rious upholstery,  so  little  in  harmony  with  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  Grandets,  had  been  included  in  the  purchase  of 
the  house,  like  the  pier-glass,  the  brass  timepiece,  the  tapestry- 
covered  chairs,  and  the  rosewood  corner  sideboards.  In  the 
further  window  stood  a  straw-bottom  chair,  raised  on  blocks 
of  wood,  so  that  Mme.  Grandet  could  watch  the  passers-by 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  21 

as  she  sat.  A  work-table  of  cherry  wood,  bleached  and  faded 
by  the  light,  filled  the  other  window  space,  and  close  beside 
it  Eugenie  Grandet's  little  armchair  was  set. 

The  lives  of  mother  and  daughter  had  flowed  on  tran- 
quilly for  fifteen  years.  Day  after  day,  from  April  to  Novem- 
ber, they  sat  at  work  in  the  windows  ;  but  the  first  day  of  the 
latter  month  found  them  beside  the  fire,  where  they  took  up 
their  positions  for  the  winter.  Grandet  would  not  allow  afire 
to  be  lighted  in  the  room  before  that  date,  nor  again  after  the 
31st  of  March,  let  the  early  days  of  spring  or  of  autumn  be 
cold  as  they  might.  Big  Nanon  managed  by  stealth  to  fill  a 
little  brasier  with  glowing  ashes  from  the  kitchen  fire,  and  in 
this  way  the  chilly  evenings  of  April  and  October  were  rend- 
ered tolerable  for  Mme.  and  Mile.  Grandet.  All  the  house- 
hold linen  was  kept  in  repair  by  the  mother  and  daughter ; 
and  so  conscientiously  did  they  devote  their  days  to  this  duty 
(no  light  task  in  truth),  that  if  Eugenie  wanted  to  embroider 
a  collarette  for  her  mother  she  was  obliged  to  steal  the  time 
from  her  hours  of  slumber,  and  to  resort  to  a  deception  to 
obtain  from  her  father  the  candle  by  which  she  worked. 
For  a  long  while  past  it  had  been  the  miser's  wont  to 
dole  out  the  candles  to  his  daughter  and  big  Nanon  in 
the  same  way  that  he  gave  out  the  bread  and  the  other  matters 
daily  required  by  the  household. 

Perhaps  big  Nanon  was  the  one  servant  in  existence  who 
could  and  would  have  endured  her  master's  tyrannous  rule. 
Every  one  in  the  town  used  to  envy  M.  and  Mme.  Grandet. 
"  Big  Nanon,"  so  called  on  account  of  her  height  of  five  feet 
eight  inches,  had  been  a  part  of  the  Grandet  household  for 
thirty-five  years.  She  was  held  to  be  one  of  the  richest 
servants  in  Saumur,  and  this  on  a  yearly  wage  of  seventy 
livres!  The  seventy  livres  had  accumulated  for  thirty-five 
years,  and  quite  recently  Nanon  had  deposited  four  thousand 
livres  with  M.  Cruchot  for  the  purchase  of  an  annuity.  This 
result  of  a  long  and  persevering  course  of  thrift  appealed  to 


22  EUG&N1E   GRANDET. 

the  imagination — it  seemed  tremendous.  There  was  not  a 
maidservant  in  Saumur  but  was  envious  of  the  poor  woman, 
who  by  the  time  she  had  reached  her  sixtieth  year  would  have 
scraped  together  enough  to  keep  herself  from  want  in  her  old 
age;  but  no  one  thought  of  the  hard  life  and  all  the  toil 
which  had  gone  to  the  making  of  that  little  hoard. 

Thirty-five  years  ago,  when  Nanon  had  been  a  homely, 
hard-featured  girl  of  two-and-twenty,  she  had  not  been  able 
to  find  a  place  because  her  appearance  had  been  so  much 
against  her.  Poor  Nanon  !  it  was  really  very  hard.  If  her 
head  had  been  set  on  the  shoulders  of  a  grenadier  it  would 
have  been  greatly  admired,  but  there  is  a  fitness  in  things,  and 
Nanon's  style  of  beauty  was  inappropriate.  She  had  been  a 
herdswoman  on  a  farm  for  a  time,  till  the  farmhouse  had  been 
burnt  down,  and  then  it  was  that,  full  of  the  robust  courage 
that  shrinks  from  nothing,  she  came  to  seek  service  in  Saumur. 

At  that  time  M.  Grandet  was  thinking  of  marriage,  and 
already  determined  to  set  up  housekeeping.  The  girl,  who 
had  been  rebuffed  from  door  to  door,  came  under  his  notice. 
He  was  a  cooper,  and  therefore  a  good  judge  of  physical 
strength ;  he  foresaw  at  once  how  useful  this  feminine  Her- 
cules could  be,  a  strongly-made  woman  who  stood  planted  as 
firmly  on  her  feet  as  an  oak  tree  rooted  in  the  soil  where  it 
has  grown  for  two  generations,  a  woman  with  square  shoulders, 
large  hips,  and  hands  like  a  ploughman's,  and  whose  honesty 
was  as  unquestionable  as  her  virtue.  He  was  not  dismayed  by 
a  martial  countenance,  a  disfiguring  wart  or  two,  a  com- 
plexion like  burnt  clay,  and  a  pair  of  sinewy  arms ;  neither 
did  Nanon's  rags  alarm  the  cooper,  whose  heart  was  not  yet 
hardened  against  misery.  He  took  the  poor  girl  into  his  ser- 
vice, gave  her  food,  clothes,  shoes,  and  wages.  Nanon  found 
her  hard  life  not  intolerably  hard.  Nay,  she  secretly  shed 
tears  of  joy  at  being  so  treated ;  she  felt  a  sincere  attachment 
for  this  master,  who  expected  as  much  from  her  as  ever  feudal 
lord  required  of  a  serf. 


EUGENIE  GRANDET,  23 

Nanon  did  all  the  work  of  the  house.  She  did  the  cooking 
and  the  washing,  carrying  all  the  linen  down  to  the  Loire  and 
bringing  it  back  on  her  shoulders.  She  rose  at  daybreak  and 
went  to  bed  late.  It  was  she  who,  without  any  assistance, 
cooked  for  the  vintagers  in  the  autumn,  and  looked  sharply 
after  the  market-folk.  She  watched  over  her  master's  prop- 
erty like  a  faithful  dog,  and  with  a  blind  belief  in  him;  she 
obeyed  his  most  arbitrary  commands  without  a  murmur — his 
whims  were  law  to  her. 

After  twenty  years  of  service,  in  the  famous  year  1811, 
when  the  vintage  had  been  gathered  in  after  unheard-of  toil 
and  trouble,  Grandet  made  up  his  mind  to  present  Nanon 
with  his  old  watch,  the  only  gift  she  had  ever  received  from 
him.  She  certainly  had  the  reversion  of  his  old  shoes  (which 
happened  to  fit  her),  but  as  a  rule  they  were  so  far  seen  into 
already  that  they  were  of  little  use  to  any  one  else,  and  could 
not  be  looked  upon  as  a  present.  Sheer  necessity  had  made 
the  poor  girl  so  penurious  that  Grandet  grew  quite  fond  of 
her  at  last,  and  regarded  her  with  the  same  sort  of  affection 
that  a  man  gives  to  his  dog;  and  as  for  Nanon,  she  cheer- 
fully wore  the  collar  of  servitude  set  round  with  spikes  that 
she  had  ceased  to  feel.  Grandet  might  stint  the  day's 
allowance  of  bread,  but  she  did  not  grumble.  The  fare 
might  be  scanty  and  poor,  but  Nanon's  spirits  did  not  suffer, 
and  her  health  appeared  to  benefit ;  there  was  never  any 
illness  in  that  house. 

And  then  Nanon  was  one  of  the  family.  She  shared  every 
mood  of  Grandet's,  laughed  when  he  laughed,  was  depressed 
when  he  was  out  of  spirits,  took  her  views  of  the  weather  or 
of  the  temperature  from  him,  and  worked  with  him  and  for 
him.  This  equality  was  an  element  of  sweetness  which  made 
up  for  many  hardships  in  her  lot.  Out  in  the  vineyards' ner 
master  had  never  said  a  word  about  the  small  peaches,  plums, 
or  nectarines  eaten  under  the  trees  that  are  planted  between 
the  rows  of  vines. 


24  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

"  Come,  Nanon,  take  as  much  as  you  like/'  he  would  say, 
in  years  when  the  branches  were  bending  beneath  their  load, 
and  fruit  was  so  abundant  that  the  farmers  round  about  were 
forced  to  give  it  to  the  pigs. 

For  the  peasant  girl,  for  the  outdoor  farm  servant,  who  had 
known  nothing  but  harsh  treatment  from  childhood,  for  the 
girl  who  had  been  rescued  from  starvation  by  charity,  old 
Grandet's  equivocal  laughter  was  like  a  ray  of  sunshine. 
Besides,  Nanon's  simple  nature  and  limited  intelligence  could 
only  entertain  one  idea  at  a  time  ;  and  during  those  thirty- 
vfive  years  of  service  one  picture  was  constantly  present  to  her 
mind — she  saw  herself  a  barefooted  girl  in  rags  standing  at 
the  gate  of  M.  Grandet's  timber-yard,  and  heard  the  sound 
of  the  cooper's  voice,  saying,  "  What  is  it,  lassie?  "  and  the 
warmth  of  gratitude  filled  her  heart  to-day  as  it  did  then. 
Sometimes,  as  he  watched  her,  the  thought  came  up  in 
Grandet's  mind  how  that  no  syllable  of  praise  or  admiration 
had  ever  been  breathed  in  her  ears,  that  all  the  tender  feelings 
that  a  woman  inspires  had  no  existence  for  her,  and  that  she 
might  well  appear  before  God  one  day  as  chaste  as  the  Virgin 
Mary  herself.  And  such  times,  prompted  by  a  sudden  impulse 
of  pity,  he  would  exclaim,  "  Poor  Nanon  !  " 

The  remark  was  always  followed  by  an  indescribable  look 
from  the  old  servant.  The  words  so  spoken  from  time  to  time 
were  separate  links  in  a  long  and  unbroken  chain  of  friend- 
ship. But  in  this  pity  in  the  miser's  soul,  which  gave  a  thrill 
of  pleasure  to  the  lonely  woman,  there  was  something  inde- 
scribably revolting  ;  it  was  a  cold-blooded  pity  that  stirred  the 
cooper's  heart ;  it  was  a  luxury  that  cost  him  nothing.  But 
for  Nanon  it  meant  the  height  of  happiness  !  Who  will  not 
likewise  say,  "  Poor  Nanon  !  "  God  will  one  day  know  His 
angels  by  the  tones  of  their  voices  and  by  the  sorrow  hidden 
in  their  hearts. 

There  were  plenty  of  households  in  Saumur  where  servants 
were  better  treated,  but  where  their  employers,  nevertheless, 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  25 

enjoyed  small  comfort  in  return.  Wherefore  people  asked, 
"  What  have  the  Grandets  done  to  that  big  Nanon  of  theirs 
that  she  should  be  so  attached  to  them?  She  would  go 
through  fire  and  water  to  serve  them  !  " 

Her  kitchen,  with  its  barred  windows  that  looked  out  into 
the  yard,  was  always  clean,  cold  and  tidy,  a  thorough  miser's 
kitchen,  in  which  nothing  was  allowed  to  be  wasted.  When 
Nanon  had  washed  her  plates  and  dishes,  put  the  remains  of 
the  dinner  into  the  safe,  and  raked  out  the  fire,  she  left  her 
kitchen  (which  was  only  separated  from  the  dining-room  by 
the  breadth  of  a  passage),  and  sat  down  to  spin  hemp  in  the 
company  of  her  employers,  for  a  single  candle  must  suffice  for 
the  whole  family  in  the  evening.  The  serving-maid  slept  in  a 
little  dark  closet  at  the  end  of  the  passage,  lit  only  by  a  bor- 
rowed light.  Nanon  had  an  iron  constitution  and  sound 
health,  which  enabled  her  to  sleep  with  impunity  year  after 
year  in  this  hole,  where  she  could  hear  the  slightest  sound  that 
broke  the  heavy  silence  brooding  day  and  night  over  the 
house  ;  she  lay  like  a  watch-dog,  with  one  ear  open  ;  she  was 
never  off  duty,  not  even  while  she  slept. 

Some  description  of  the  rest  of  the  house  will  be  necessary 
in  the  course  of  the  story  in  connection  with  later  events  ;  but 
the  parlor,  wherein  all  the  splendor  and  luxury  of  the  house 
was  concentrated,  has  been  sketched  already,  and  the  empti- 
ness and  bareness  of  the  upper  rooms  can  be  surmised  for  the 
present. 

It  was  in  the  middle  of  November,  in  the  year  1819,  twi- 
light was  coming  on,  and  big  Nanon  was  lighting  a  fire  in  the 
parlor  for  the  first  time.  It  was  a  festival  day  in  the  calendar 
of  the  Cruchotins  and  Grassinistes,  wherefore  the  six  antago- 
nists were  preparing  to  set  forth,  all  armed  cap-a-pie,  for  a 
contest  in  which  each  side  meant  to  outdo  the  other  in  proofs 
of  friendship.  The  Grandets'  parlor  was  to  be  the  scene  of 
action.     That  morning  Mme.  and  Mile.  Grandet,   duly  at- 

B 


26  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

tended  by  Nanon,  had  repaired  to  the  parish  church  to  hear 
mass.  All  Saumur  had  seen  them  go,  and  every  one  had  been 
put  in  mind  of  the  fact  that  it  was  Eugenie's  birthday.  M. 
Cruchot,  the  Abbe  Cruchot,  and  M.  C.  de  Bonfons,  therefore, 
having  calculated  the  hour  when  dinner  would  be  over,  were 
eager  to  be  first  in  the  field,  and  to  arrive  before  the  Grassi- 
nistes  to  congratulate  Mile.  Grandet.  All  three  carried  huge 
bunches  of  flowers  gathered  in  their  little  garden  plots,  but  the 
stalks  of  the  magistrate's  bouquet  were  ingeniously  bound 
round  by  a  white  satin  ribbon  with  a  tinsel  fringe  at  the  ends. 

In  the  morning  M.  Grandet  had  gone  to  Eugenie's  room 
before  she  had  left  her  bed,  and  had  solemnly  presented  her 
with  a  rare  gold  coin.  It  was  her  father's  wont  to  surprise 
her  in  this  way  twice  every  year — once  on  her  birthday,  once 
on  the  equally  memorable  day  of  her  patron  saint.  Mme. 
Grandet  usually  gave  her  daughter  a  winter  or  a  summer  dress, 
according  to  circumstances.  The  two  dresses  and  two  gold 
coins,  which  she  received  on  her  father's  birthday  and  on 
New  Year's  Day,  altogether  amounted  to  an  annual  income 
of  nearly  a  hundred  crowns ;  Grandet  loved  to  watch  the 
money  accumulating  in  her  hands.  He  did  not  part  with  his 
money ;  he  felt  that  it  was  only  like  taking  it  out  of  one  box 
and  putting  it  into  another  ;  and  besides,  was  it  not,  so  to 
speak,  fostering  a  proper  regard  for  gold  in  his  heiress?  She 
was  being  trained  in  the  way  in  which  she  should  go.  Now 
and  then  he  asked  for  an  account  of  her  wealth  (formerly 
swelled  by  gifts  from  the  La  Bertellieres),  and  each  time  he 
did  so  he  used  to  tell  her,  "This  will  be  your  dozen  when 
you  are  married." 

The  dozen  is  an  old-world  custom  which  has  lost  none  of  its 
force,  and  is  still  religiously  adhered  to  in  several  midland 
-districts  in  France.  In  Berri  or  Anjou,  when  a  daughter  is 
married,  it  is  incumbent  upon  her  parents,  or  upon  her  bride- 
groom's family,  to  give  her  a  purse  containing  either  a  dozen, 
or  twelve  dozen,  or  twelve  hundred  gold  or  silver  coins,  the 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  27 

amount  varying  with  the  means  of  the  family.  The  poorest 
herd-girl  would  not  be  content  without  her  dozen  when  she  mar- 
ried, even  if  she  could  only  bring  twelve  pence  as  a  dower. 
They  talk  even  yet  at  Issoudun  of  a  fabulous  dozen  once  given 
to  a  rich  heiress,  which  consisted  of  a  hundred  and  forty-four 
Portuguese  moidores ;  and  when  Catherine  de  Medicis  was 
married  to  Henry  II.,  her  uncle,  Clement  VII.,  gave  the 
bride  a  dozen  antique  gold  medals  of  priceless  value. 

Eugenie  wore  her  new  dress  at  dinner,  and  looked  prettier 
than  usual  in  it  \  her  father  was  in  high  good-humor. 

"Let  us  have  a  fire,"  he  cried,  "as  it  is  Eugenie's  birth- 
day !     It  will  be  a  good  omen." 

"Mademoiselle  will  be  married  within  the  year,  that's  cer- 
tain," said  big  Nanon,  as  she  removed  the  remains  of  a  goose, 
that  pheasant  of  the  coopers  of  Saumur. 

"There  is  no  one  that  I  know  of  in  Saumur  who  would  do 
for  Eugenie,"  said  Mme.  Grandet,  with  a  timid  glance  atiier 
husband,  a  glance  that  revealed  how  completely  her  husband's 
tyranny  had  broken  the  poor  woman's  spirit. 

Grandet  looked  at  his  daughter,  and  said  merrily,  "  We 
must  really  begin  to  think  about  her;  the  little  girl  is  twenty- 
three  years  old  to-day." 

Neither  Eugenie  nor  her  mother  said  a  word,  but  they 
exchanged  glances  ;  they  understood  each  other. 

Mme.  Grandet's  face  was  thin  and  wrinkled  and  yellow  as 
saffron  ;  she  was  awkward  and  slow  in  her  movements,  one 
of  those  beings  who  seem  born  to  be  tyrannized  over.  She 
was  a  large-boned  woman,  with  a  large  nose,  large  eyes,  and 
a  prominent  forehead ;  there  seemed  to  be,  at  first  sight,  some 
dim  suggestion  of  a  resemblance  between  her  and  some  shriv- 
eled, spongy,  dried-up  fruit.  The  few  teeth  that  remained  to 
her  were  dark  and  discolored  ;  there  were  deep  lines  fretted 
about  her  mouth,  and  her  chin  was  something  after  the  "  nut- 
cracker "  pattern.  She  was  a  good  sort  of  a  woman,  and  a 
La  Bertelliere  to  the  backbone.     The  Abbe  Cruchot  had  more 


-  28  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

than  once  found  occasion  to  tell  her  that  she  had  not  been  so 
bad  looking  when  she  was  young,  and  she  did  not  disagree 
with  him.  An  angelic  sweetness  of  disposition,  the  helpless 
meekness  of  an  insect  in  the  hands  of  cruel  children,  a  sin- 
cere piety,  a  kindly  heart,  and  an  even  temper  that  nothing 
could  ruffle  orjsour, had  gained  universal  respect  and  pity  for  her. 

Her  appearance  might  provoke  a  smile,  but  she  had  brought 
her  husband  more  than  three  hundred  thousand  francs,  partly 
as  her  dowry,  partly  through  bequests.  Yet  Grandet  never 
gave  his  wife  more  than  six  francs  at  a  time  for  pocket-money, 
and  she  always  regarded  herself  as  dependent  upon  her  hus- 
band. The  meek  gentleness  of  her  nature  forbade  any  revolt 
against  his  tyranny;  but  so  deeply  did  she  feel  the  humiliation 
of  her  position  that  she  never  asked  him  for  a  sou,  and  when 
M.  Cruchot  demanded  her  signature  to  any  document,  she 
always  gave  it  without  a  word.  This  foolish  sensitive  pride, 
which  Grandet  constantly  and  unwittingly  hurt,  this  magna- 
nimity which  he  was  quite  incapable  of  understanding,  were 
Mme.  Grandet' s  dominant  characteristics. 

Her  dress  never  varied.  Her  gown  was  always  of  the  same 
dull,  greenish  shade  of  laventine,  and  usually  lasted  her  nearly 
a  twelvemonth  ;  the  large  handkerchief  at  her  throat  was  of  some 
kind  of  cotton  material ;  she  wore  a  straw  bonnet,  and  was  seldom 
seen  without  a  black  silk  apron.  She  left  the  house  so  rarely 
that  her  walking  shoes  were  seldom  worn  out ;  indeed,  her 
requirements  were  very  few,  she  never  wanted  anything  for 
herself.  Sometimes  it  would  occur  to  Grandet  that  it  was  a 
long  while  since  he  had  given  the  last  six  francs  to  his  wife, 
and  his  conscience  would  prick  him  a  little ;  and  after  the 
vintage,  when  he  sold  his  wine,  he  always  demanded  pin- 
money  for  his  wife  over  and  above  the  bargain.  These  four 
or  five  louis  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  Dutch  or  Belgian  mer- 
chants were  Mme.  Grandet's  only  certain  source  of  yearly 
income.  But  although  she  received  her  five  louis,  her  husband 
would  often  say  to  her,  as  if  they  had  one  common  purse, 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  29 

"  Have  you  a  few  sous  that  you  can  lend  me?  "  and  she,  poor 
woman,  glad  that  it  was  in  her  power  to  do  anything  for  the 
man  whom  her  confessor  always  taught  her  to  regard  as  her 
lord  and  master,  used  to  return  to  him  more  than  one  crown 
out  of  her  little  store  in  the  course  of  the  winter.  Every 
month,  when  Grandet  disbursed  the  five-franc  piece  which  h/6 
allowed  his  daughter  for  needles,  thread,  and  small  expenses 
of  dress,  he  remarked  to  his  wife  (after  he  had  buttoned  up 
his  pocket),  "And  how  about  you,  mother;  do  you  want 
anything?"  And  with,  a  mother's  dignity  Mme.  Grandet 
would  answer,  "  We  will  talk  about  that  by-and-by,  dear." 

Her  magnanimity  was  entirely  lost  upon  Grandet ;  he 
considered  that  he  did  very  handsomely  by  his  wife.  The 
philosophic  mind,  contemplating  the  Nanons,  the  Mme.  Gran- 
dets,  the  Eugenies  of  this  life,  holds  that  the  Author  of  the 
universe  is  a  profound  satirist,  and  who  will  quarrel  withnhe 
conclusion  of  the  philosophic  mind  ?  After  the  dinner,  when 
the  question  of  Eugenie's  marriage  had  been  raised  for  the 
first  time,  Nanon  went  up  to  M.  Grandet's  room  to  fetch  a 
bottle  of  black-currant  cordial,  and  very  nearly  lost  her  footing 
on  the  staircase  as  she  came  down. 

"  Great  stupid  !  Are  you  going  to  take  to  tumbling  about  ? ,f 
inquired  her  master. 

"It  is  all  along  of  the  step,  sir ;  it  gave  way.  The  staircase 
isn't  safe." 

"She  is  quite  right,"  said  Mme.  Grandet.  "You  ought 
to  have  had  it  rhended  long  ago.  Eugenie  all  but  sprained 
her  foot  on  it  yesterday." 

"  Here,"  said  Grandet,  who  saw  that  Nanon  looked  very 
pale,  "as  to-day  is  Eugenie's  birthday,  and  you  have  nearly 
fallen  downstairs,  take  a  drop  of  black-currant  cordial  ;  that 
will  put  you  right  again." 

"  I  deserve  it,  too,  upon  my  word,"  said  Nanon.  "  Many  a 
one  would  have  broken  the  bottle  in  my  place  ;  I  should  have 
broken  my  elbow  first,  holding  it  up  to  save  it." 


30  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

"Poor  Nanon  !  "  muttered  Grandet,  pouring  out  the  black 
currant  cordial  for  her. 

"  Did  you  hurt  yourself?  "  asked  Eugenie,  looking  at  her 
in  concern. 

"  No,  I  managed  to  break  the  fall ;  I  came  down  on  my 
side." 

"Well,"  said  Grandet,  "  as  to-day  is  Eugenie's  birthday, 
I  will  mend  your  step  for  you.  Somehow,  you  women-folk 
cannot  manage  to  put  your  foot  down  in  the  corner,  where  it 
is  still  solid  and  safe." 

Grandet  took  up  the  candle,  left  the  three  women  without 
any  other  illumination  in  the  room  than  the  bright  dancing 
firelight,  and  went  to  the  bakehouse,  where  tools,  nails,  and 
odd  pieces  of  wood  were  kept. 

"  Do  you  want  any  help?  "  Nanon  called  to  him,  when  the 
first  blow  sounded  on  the  staircase. 

"No!  no!  I  am  an  old  hand  at  it,"  answered  the 
cooper. 

At  this  very  moment,  while  Grandet  was  doing  the  repairs 
himself  to  his  worm-eaten  staircase,  and  whistling  with  all  his 
might  as  memories  of  his  young  days  came  up  in  his  mind, 
the  three  Cruchots  knocked  at  the  house-door. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  is  it,  M.  Cruchot?"  asked  Nanon,  as  she 
took  a  look  through  the  small  square  grating. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  magistrate. 

Nanon  opened  the  door,  and  the  glow  of  the  firelight  shone 
on  the  three  Cruchots,  who  were  groping  in  the  archway. 

"Oh!  you  have  come  to  help  us  keep  her  birthday," 
Nanon  said,  as  the  scent  of  flowers  reached  her. 

"Excuse  me  a  moment,  gentlemen,"  cried  Grandet,  who 
recognized  the  voices  of  his  acquaintances  ;  "I  am  your  very 
humble  servant  !  There  is  no  pride  about  me;  I  am  patching 
up  a  broken  stair  here  myself." 

"Go  on,  go  on,  M.  Grandet!  The  charcoal  burner  is 
mayor  in  his  own  house,"  said  the  magistrate  sententiousiy. 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  31 

Nobody  saw  the  allusion,  and  he  had  his  laugh  all  to  himself. 
Mme.  and  Mile.  Grandet  rose  to  greet  them.  The  magistrate 
took  advantage  of  the  darkness  to  speak  to  Eugenie. 

"  Will  you  permit  me,  mademoiselle,  on  the  anniversary  of  f 
your  birthday,  to  wish  you   a  long  succession  of  prosperous 
years,  and  may  you  for  long  preserve  the  health  with  which 
you  are  blessed  at  present." 

He  then  offered  her  such  a  bouquet  of  flowers  as  was  seldom 
seen  in  Saumur ;  and,  taking  the  heiress  by  both  arms,  gave  her 
a  kiss  on  either  side  of  the  throat,  a  fervent  salute  which 
brought  the  color  into  Eugenie's  face.  The  magistrate  was 
tall  and  thin,  somewhat  resembling  a  rusty  nail ;  this  was  his 
notion  of  paying  court. 

"  Do  not  disturb  yourselves,"  said  Grandet,  coming  back 
into  the  room.  "Fine  doings  these  of  yours,  M.  le  President, 
on  high  days  and  holidays  !  " 

"With  mademoiselle  beside  him  every  day  would  be  a 
holiday  for  my  nephew,"  answered  the  Abbe  Cruchot,  also 
armed  with  a  bouquet;  and  with  that  the  Abbe  kissed 
Eugenie's  hand.  As  for  M.  Cruchot,  he  kissed  her  uncere- 
moniously on  both  cheeks,  saying,  "  This  sort  of  thing  makes 
us  feel  older,  eh  ?     A  whole  year  older  every  twelve  months." 

Grandet  set  down  the  candle  in  front  of  the  brass  clock  on 
the  chimney-piece ;  whenever  a  joke  amused  him  he  kept  on 
repeating  it  till  it  was  worn  threadbare  ;  he  did  so  now. 

"As  to-day  is  Eugenie's  birthday,"  he  said,  "  let  us  have 
an  illumination." 

He  carefully  removed  the  branches  from  the  two  sconces, 
fitted  the  sockets  into  either  pedestal,  took  from  Nanon's 
hands  a  whole  new  candle  wrapped  in  a  scrap  of  paper,  fixed 
it  firmly  in  the  socket,  and  lighted  it.  Then  he  went  over  to 
his  wife  and  took  up  his  position  beside  her,  looking  by  turns 
at  his  daughter,  his  friends,  and  the  two  lighted  candles. 

The  Abbe  Cruchot  was  a  fat,  dumpy  little  man  with  a  well- 
worn  sandy  peruke.     His  peculiar  type  of  face  might  have  be- 


32  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

longed  to  some  old  lady  whose  life  is  spent  at  the  card-table. 
At  this  moment  he  was  stretching  out  his  feet  and  displaying  a 
very  neat  and  strong  pair  of  shoes  with  silver  buckles  on  them. 

"  The  des  Grassins  have  not  come  round?  "  he  asked. 

"Not  yet,"  answered  Grandet. 

"Are  they  sure  to  come?"  put  in  the  old  notary,  with 
various  contortions  of  a  countenance  as  full  of  holes  as  a 
colander. 

"Oh  !  yes,  I  think  they  will  come,"  said  Mme.  Grandet. 

"Is  the  vintage  over?"  asked  President  de  Bonfons,  ad- 
dressing Grandet ;   "  are  all  your  grapes  gathered?  " 

"Yes,  everywhere  !  "  answered  the  old  vine-grower,  rising 
and  walking  up  and  down  the  length  of  the  room;  he  straight- 
ened himself  upas  he  spoke  with  a  conscious  pride  that  ap- 
peared in  that  word  "  everywhere." 

As  he  passed  by  the  door  that  opened  into  the  passage, 
Grandet  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  kitchen  ;  the  fire  was  still 
alight,  a  candle  was  burning  there,  and  big  Nanon  was  about 
to  begin  her  spinning  by  the  hearth;  she  did  not  wish  to 
intrude  upon  the  birthday  party. 

"Nanon!"  he  called,  stepping  out  into  the  passage. 
"Nanon  !  why  ever  don't  you  rake  out  the  fire;  put  out  the 
candle  and  come  in  here !  Pardieu  /  the  room  is  large 
enough  to  hold  us  all." 

"But  you  are  expecting  grand  visitors,  sir." 

"Have  you  any  objection  to  them?  They  are  all  de- 
scended from  Adam  just  as  much  as  you  are." 

Grandet  went  back  to  the  president. 

"  Have  you  sold  your  wine?  "  he  inquired. 

"  Not  I  ;  I  am  holding  it.  If  the  wine  is  good  now,  it  will 
be  better  still  in  two  years'  time.  The  growers,  as  you  know, 
of  course,  are  in  a  ring,  and  mean  to  keep  prices  up.  The 
Belgians  shall  not  have  it  all  their  own  way  this  year.  And 
if  they  go  away,  well  and  good,  let  them  go ;  they  will  come 
back  again." 


EUGEXIE    GRANDET.  33 

"Yes;  but  we  must  hold  firm,"  said  Grandet  in  a  tone 
that  made  the  magistrate  shudder. 

"  Suppose  he  should  sell  his  wine  behind  our  backs?"  he 
thought. 

At  that  moment  another  knock  at  the  door  announced  the' 
des  Grassins,    and  interrupted  a    quiet    talk   between    Mme. 
Grandet  and  the  Abbe  Cruchot. 

Mme.  des  Grassins  was  a  dumpy,  lively,  little  person  with 
a  pink-and-white  complexion,  one  of  those  women  for  whom 
the  course  of  life  in  a  country  town  has  flowed  on  with  almost 
claustral  tranquillity,  and  who,  thanks  to  this  regular  and 
virtuous  existence,  are  still  youthful  at  the  age  of  forty.  They 
are  something  like  the  late  roses  in  autumn,  which  are  fair 
and  pleasant  to  the  sight,  but  the  almost  scentless  petals  have 
a  pinched  look,  there  is  a  vague  suggestion  of  coming  winter 
about  them.  She  dressed  tolerably  well,  her  gowns  came  from 
Paris,  she  was  a  leader  of  society  in  Saumur,  and  received  on 
certain  evenings.  Her  husband  had  been  a  quartermaster  in 
the  Imperial  Guard,  but  he  had  retired  from  the  army  with  a 
pension,  after  being  badly  wounded  at  Austerlitz.  In  spite 
of  his  consideration  for  Grandet,  he  still  retained,  or  affected 
to  retain,  the  bluff  manners  of  a  soldier. 

"Good-day,  Grandet,"  he  said,  holding  out  his  hand  to 
the  cooper  with  that  wonted  air  of  superiority  with  which  he 
eclipsed  the  Cruchot  faction.  "Mademoiselle."  he  added, 
addressing  Eugenie,  after  a  bow  to  Mme.  Grandet,  "  you  are 
always  charming,  ever  good  and  fair,  and  what  more  can  one 
wish  you?  " 

With  that  he  presented  her  with  a  small  box,  which  a 
servant  was  carrying,  and  which  contained  a  Cape  heath,  a 
plant  only  recently  introduced  into  Europe,  and  very  rare. 

Mme.  des  Grassins  embraced  Eugenie  very  affectionately, 
squeezed  her  hand,  arid  said,  "  I  have  commissioned  Adolphe 
to  give  you  my  little  birthday  gift." 

A  tall,  fair-haired  young  man,  somewhat  pallid  and  weakly 


34  EUGENIE    GRANDE! '. 

in  appearance,  came  forward  at  this ;  his  manners  were  pass- 
ably good,  although  he  seemed  to  be  shy.  He  had  just  com- 
pleted his  law  studies  in  Paris,  where  he  had  managed  to 
spend  eight  or  ten  thousand  francs  over  and  above  his  allow- 
ance. He  now  kissed  Eugenie  on  both  cheeks,  and  laid  a 
workbox  with  gilded  silver  fittings  before  her ;  it  was  a  showy, 
trumpery  thing  enough,  in  spite  of  the  little  shield  on  the  lid, 
on  which  an  E.  G.  had  been  engraved  in  Gothic  characters,  a 
detail  which  gave  an  imposing  air  to  the  whole.  Eugenie 
raised  the  lid  with  a  little  thrill  of  pleasure,  the  happiness  was 
as  complete  as  it  was  unlooked  for — the  happiness  that  brings 
bright  color  into  a  young  girl's  face  and  makes  her  tremble 
with  delight.  Her  eyes  turned  to  her  father  as  if  to  ask 
whether  she  might  accept  the  gift ;  M.  Grandet  answered  the 
mute  inquiry  with  a  "  Take  it,  my  daughter !  "  in  tones  which 
would  have  made  the  reputation  of  an  actor.  The  three  Cru- 
chots  stood  dumfounded  when  they  saw  the  bright,  de- 
lighted glance  that  Adolphe  des  Grassins  received  from 
the  heiress,  who  seemed  to  be  dazzled  by  such  undreamed-of 
splendors. 

M.  des  Grassins  offered  his  snuff-box  to  Grandet,  took  a 
pinch  himself,  brushed  off  a  few  stray  specks  from  his  blue 
coat  and  from  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  at  his  but- 
ton-hole, and  looked  at  the  Cruchots,  as  though  to  say,  "  Parry 
that  thrust  if  you  can  !  "  Mme.  des  Grassins'  eyes  fell  on  the 
blue  glass  jars  in  which  the  Cruchots'  bouquets  had  been  set. 
She  looked  at  their  gifts  with  the  innocent  air  of  pretended 
interest  which  a  satirical  woman  knows  how  to  assume  upon 
occasion.  It  was  a  delicate  crisis.  The  Abbe  got  up  and  left 
the  others,  who  were  forming  a  circle  round  the  fire,  and 
joined  Grandet  in  his  promenade  up  and  down  the  room. 
When  the  two  elders  had  reached  the  embrasure  of  the  win- 
dow at  the  farther  end,  away  from  the  group  by  the  fire,  the 
priest  said  in  the  miser's  ear,  "  Those  people  yonder  are 
throwing  their  money  out  of  the  windows." 


£  UGENIE    GRAND ET.  35 

"  What  does  that  matter  to  me,  so  long  as  it  comes  my 
way  ?  "  the  old  vine-grower  answered. 

'*  If  you  had  a  mind  to  give  your  daughter  golden  scissorsv 
you  could  very  well  afford  it,"  said  the  Abbe. 

"  I  shall  give  her  something  better  than  scissors,"  Grandet 
answered. 

"  What  an  idiot  my  nephew  is  !  "  thought  the  Abbe,  as  he 
looked  at  the  magistrate,  whose  dark,  ill-favored  countenance 
was  set  off  to  perfection  at  that  moment  by  a  shock  head  of 
hair.  "  Why  couldn't  he  have  hit  on  some  expensive  piece 
of  foolery  ?" 

"  We  will  take  a  hand  at  cards,  Mme.  Grandet,"  said  Mme. 
des  Grassins. 

"  But  as  we  are  all  here,  there  are  enough  of  us  for  two 
tables " 

"As  to-day  is  Eugenie's  birthday,  why  not  all  play  to- 
gether at  loto?"  said  old  Grandet;  "these  two  children 
could  join  in  the  game." 

The  old  cooper,  who  never  played  at  any  game  whatever, 
pointed  to  his  daughter  and  Adolphe. 

"Here,  Nanon,  move  the  tables  out." 

"We  will  help  you,  Mademoiselle  Nanon,"  said  Mme.  des 
Grassins  cheerfully ;  she  was  thoroughly  pleased,  because  she 
had  pleased  Eugenie. 

"I  have  never  seen  anything  so  pretty  anywhere,"  the 
heiress  had  said  to  her.  "  I  have  never  been  so  happy  in  my 
life  before." 

"It  was  Adolphe  who  chose  it,"  said  Mme.  des  Grassins 
in  the  girl's  ear;   "he  brought  it  from  Paris." 

"Go  your  ways,  accursed  scheming  woman,"  muttered  the 
magistrate  to  himself.  "If  you  or  your  husband  ever  find 
yourselves  in  a  court  of  law,  you  shall  be  hard  put  to  it  to 
gain  the  day." 

The  notary,  calmly  seated  in  his  corner,  watched  the  Abb6, 
and  said  to  himself,  "  The  des  Grassins  may  do  what  they  like  ; 


36  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

my  fortune  and  my  brother's  and  my  nephew's  fortunes  alto- 
gether mount  up  to  eleven  hundred  thousand  francs.  The  des 
Grassins,  at  the  very  utmost,  have  only  half  as  much,  and  they 
have  a  daughter.  Let  them  give  whatever  they  like,  all  will 
be  ours  some  day — the  heiress  and  her  presents  too." 

Two  tables  were  in  readiness  by  half-past  eight  o'clock. 
Mme.  de  Grassins,  with  her  winning  ways,  had  succeeded  in 
placing  her  son  next  to  Eugenie.  The  actors  in  the  scene, 
so  commonplace  in  appearance,  so  full  of  interest  beneath  the 
surface,  each  provided  with  slips  of  pasteboard  of  various  col- 
ors and  blue  glass  counters,  seemed  to  be  listening  to  the  little 
jokes  made  by  the  old  notary,  who  never  drew  a  number 
without  making  some  remark  upon  it,  but  they  were  all  think- 
ing of  M.  Grandet's  millions.  The  old  cooper  himself  eyed 
the  group  with  a  certain  self-complacency;  he  looked  at  Mme. 
des  Grassins  with  her  pink  feathers  and  her  fresh  toilet,  at  the 
banker's  soldierly  face,  at  Adolphe,  at  the  magistrate,  at  the 
Abbe  and  the  notary,  and  within  himself  he  said:  "They 
are  all  after  my  crowns ;  that  is  what  they  are  here  for.  It 
is  for  my  daughter  that  they  come  to  be  bored  here.  Aha ! 
and  my  daughter  is  for  none  of  them,  and  all  these  people 
are  so  many  harpoons  to  be  used  in  my  fishing." 

The  merriment  of  this  family  party,  the  laughter,  only 
sincere  when  it  came  from  Eugenie  or  her  mother,  and  to 
which  the  low  whirring  of  Nanon's  spinning-wheel  made 
an  accompaniment,  the  sordid  meanness  playing  for  high 
stakes,  the  young  girl  herself,  like  some  rare  bird,  the  in- 
nocent victim  of  its  high  value,  tracked  down  and  snared 
by  specious  pretenses  of  friendship  ;  taken  altogether,  it  was 
a  sorry  comedy  that  was  being  played  in  the  old  gray-painted 
parlor,  by  the  dim  light  of  the  two  candles.  Was  it  not, 
however,  a  drama  of  all  time,  played  out  everywhere  all  over 
the  world,  but  here  reduced  to  its  simplest  expression?  Old 
Grandet  towered  above  the  other  actors,  turning  all  this  sham 
affection  to  his  own  account,  and  reaping  a  rich  harvest  from 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  37 

this  simulated  friendship.     His  face  hovered  above  the  scene 
like  the  interpretation  of  an   evil   dream.     He   was   like   the 
incarnation  of  the  one  god  who  yet  finds  worshipers  in  mod/ 
ern  times,  of  money  and  the  power  of  wealth. 

With  him  the  gentler  and  sweeter  impulses  of  human  life 
only  occupied  the  second  place ;  but  they  so  filled  three  purer 
hearts  there  that  there  was  no  room  in  them  for  other 
thoughts — the  hearts  of  Nanon,  and  of  Eugenie  and  her 
mother.  And  yet,  how  much  ignorance  mingied^with  their 
innocent  simplicity  !  Eugenie  and  her  mother  knew  nothing 
of  Grandet's  wealth  \  they  saw  everything  through  a  medium 
of  dim  ideas,  peculiar  to  their  own  narrow  world,  and  neither 
desired  nor  despised  money,  accustomed  as  they  were  to  do 
without  it.  Nor  were  they  conscious  of  an  uncongenial  at- 
mosphere ;  the  strength  of  their  feelings,  their  inner  life,  made 
of  them  a  strange  exception  in  this  gathering,  wholly  intent 
upon  material  interests.  Appalling  is  the  condition  of  man ; 
there  is  no  drop  of  happiness  in  his  lot  but  has  its  source 
in  ignorance. 

Just  as  Mme.  Grandet  had  won  sixteen  sous,  the  largest 
amount  that  had  ever  been  punted  beneath  that  roof,  and  big 
Nanon  was  beaming  with  delight  at  the  sight  of  Madame 
pocketing  that  splendid  sum,  there  was  a  knock  at  the  house- 
door,  so  sudden  and  so  loud  that  it  startled  the  women  for 
the  moment; 

"  No  one  in  Saumur  would  knock  in  that  way  !  "  said  the 
notary. 

''What  do  they  thump  like  that  for  ?  "  said  Nanon.  "  Do 
they  want  to  break  our  door  down  ?  ■' 

"  Who  the  devil  is  it?  "  cried  Grandet. 

Nanon  took  up  one  of  the  two  candles  and  went  to  open 
the  door.     Grandet  followed  her. 

"Grandet!  Grandet  1  "  cried  his  wife;  a  vague  terror 
seized  her,  and  she  hurried  to  the  door  of  the  room. 

The  players  all  looked  at  ~ach  other. 


38  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

"Suppose  we  go  too?"  said  M.  des  Grassins.  "  That 
knock  means  no  good,  it  seemed  to  me." 

But  M.  des  Grassins  scarcely  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  young 
man's  face  and  of  a  porter  who  was  carrying  two  huge  trunks 
and  an  assortment  of  carpet  bags,  before  Grandet  turned 
sharply  on  his  wife  and  said — 

"  Go  back  to  your  loto,  Mme.  Grandet,  and  leave  me  to 
settle  with  this  gentleman  here." 

With  that  he  slammed  the  parlor  door,  and  the  loto  players 
sat  down  again,  but  they  were  too  much  excited  to  go  on  with 
the  game. 

"Is  it  any  one  who  lives  in  Saumur,  M.  des  Grassins?" 
his  wife  inquired. 

"  No,  a  traveler." 

"  Then  he  must  have  come  from  Paris." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  said  the  notary,  drawing  out  a 
heavy  antique  watch,  a  couple  of  fingers'  breadth  in  thickness, 
and  not  unlike  a  Dutch  punt  in  shape,  "  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  is  nine  o'clock.  Peste  !  the  mail-coach  is  not  often  behind 
time." 

"  Is  he  young  looking?  "   put  in  the  Abbe  Cruchot. 

"  Yes,"  answered  M.  des  Grassins.  "  The  luggage  he  has 
with  him  must  weigh  three  hundred  kilos  at  least." 

"  Nanon  does  not  come  back,"  said  Eugenie. 

"It  must  be  some  relation  of  yours,"  the  president  re- 
marked. 

"Let  us  put  down  our  stakes,"  said  Mme.  Grandet  gently. 
"  M.  Grandet  was  vexed,  I  could  tell  that  by  the  sound  of  his 
voice,  and  perhaps  he  would  be  displeased  if  he  came  in  and 
found  us  all  discussing  his  affairs." 

"Mademoiselle,"  Adolphe  addressed  his  neighbor,  "it 
will  be  your  cousin  Grandet  no  doubt,  a  very  nice-looking 
young  fellow  whom  I  once  met  at  a  ball  at  M.  de  Nucin- 
gen's." 

Adolphe  went  no  further,  his  mother  stamped  on  his  foot 


EUGENIE   GRAND ET.  39 

under  the  table.  Aloud,  she  asked  him  for  two  sous  for  his 
stake,  adding  in  an  undertone,  meant  only  for  his  ears. 
"Will  you  hold  your  tongue,  you  great  silly  !  " 

They  could  hear  the  footsteps  of  Nanon  and  the  porter  on 
the  staircase,  but  Grandet  returned  to  the  room  almost  imme- 
diately, and  just  behind  him  came  the  traveler  who  had 
excited  so  much  curiosity,  and  loomed  so  large  in  the  imagina- 
tions of  those  assembled;  indeed,  his  sudden  descent  into 
their  midst  might  be  compared  to  the  arrival  of  a  snail  in  a 
beehive,  or  the  entrance  of  a  peacock  into  some  humdrum 
village  poultry-yard. 

"Take  a  seat  near  the  fire,"  said  Grandet,  addressing  the 
stranger. 

The  young  man  looked  round  the  room  and  bowed  very 
gracefully  before  seating  himself.  The  men  rose  and  bowed 
politely  in  return,  the  women  courtesied  rather  ceremoniously. 

"  You  are  feeling  cold,  I  expect,  sir,"  said  Mme.  Grandet ; 
"  you  have  no  doubt  come  from " 

"Just  like  the  women  !  "  broke  in  the  good  man,  looking 
up  from  the  letter  which  he  held  in  his  hand.  "  Do  let  the 
gentleman  have  a  little  peace." 

"But,  father,  perhaps  the  gentleman  wants  something  after 
his  journey,"  said  Eugenie. 

"  He  has  a  tongue  in  his  head,"  the  vine-grower  answered 
severely. 

The  stranger  alone  felt  any  surprise  at  this  scene,  the  rest 
were  quite  used  to  the  worthy  man  and  his  arbitrary  behavior. 
But  after  the  two  inquiries  had  received  the  summary  answers, 
the  stranger  rose  and  stood  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  held  out 
a  foot  to  the  blaze,  so  as  to  warm  the  soles  of  his  boots,  and 
said  to  Eugenie,  "  Thank  you,  cousin,  I  dined  at  Tours.  And 
I  do  not  require  anything,"  he  added,  glancing  at  Grandet ; 
"  I  am  not  in  the  least  tired." 

"Do  you  come  from  Paris?"  (it  was  Mme.  des  Grassins 
who  now  put  the  inquiry). 


40  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

M.  Charles  (for  this  was  the  name  borne  by  the  son  of  M. 
Grandet  of  Paris),  hearing  some  one  question  him,  took  out  an 
eyeglass  that  hung  suspended  from  his  neck  by  a  cord,  fixed  it 
in  his  eye,  made  a  deliberate  survey  of  the  objects  upon  the 
table  and  of  the  people  sitting  round  it,  eyed  Mme.  des 
Grassins  very  coolly,  and  said  (when  he  had  completed  his 
survey),  "Yes,  madame.  You  are  playing  at  loto,  aunt,"  he 
added  ;  "  pray  go  on  with  your  game,  it  is  too  amusing  to  be 
broken  off " 

"  I  knew  it  was  the  cousin,"  thought  Mme.  des  Grassins, 
and  she  gave  him  a  side  glance  from  time  to  time. 

"  Forty-seven,"  cried  the  old  Abbe.  "Keep count.  Mme. 
des  Grassins,  that  is  your  number,  is  it  not?  " 

M.  des  Grassins  put  down  a  counter  on  his  wife's  card;  the 
lady  herself  was  not  thinking  of  loto,  her  mind  was  full  of 
melancholy  forebodings,  she  was  watching  Eugenie  and  the 
cousin  from  Paris.  She  saw  how  the  heiress  now  and  then 
stole  a  glance  at  her  cousin,  and  the  banker's  wife  could  easily 
discover  in  those  glances  a  crescendo  of  amazement  or  of 
curiosity. 

There  was  certainly  a  strange  contrast  between  M.  Charles 
Grandet,  a  handsome  young  man  of  two-and-twenty,  and  the 
worthy  provincials,  who,  tolerably  disgusted  already  with  his 
aristocratic  airs,  were  scornfully  studying  the  stranger  with  a 
view  to  making  game  of  him.     This  requires  some  explanation. 

At  two-and-twenty  childhood  is  not  so  very  far  away,  and 
youth,  on  the  borderland,  has  not  finally  and  forever  put  away 
childish  things;  Charles  Grandet's  vanity  was  childish,  but 
perhaps  ninety- nine  young  men  out  of  a  hundred  would  have 
been  carried  away  by  it  and  behaved  exactly  as  he  did. 

Some  days  previously  his  father  had  bidden  him  to  go  on  a 
visit  of  several  months  to  his  uncle  in  Saumur  ;  perhaps  M. 
Grandet  (of  Paris)  had  Eugenie  in  his  mind.  Charles, 
launched  in  this  way  into  a  country  town  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  had  his  own  ideas.     He  would  make  his  appearance  in 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  41 

provincial  society  with  all  the  superiority  of  a  young  man  of> 
fashion  ;  he  would  reduce  the  neighborhood  to  despair  by  his 
splendor;  he  would  inaugurate  a  new  epoch,  and  introduce 
all  the  latest  and  most  ingenious  refinement  of  Parisian  luxury. 
To  be  brief,  he  meant  to  devote  more  time  at  Saumur  than  in 
Paris  to  the  care  of  his  nails,  and  to  carry  out  schemes  of  elab- 
orate and  studied  refinements  in  dress  at  his  leisure  ;  there 
should  be  none  of  the  not  ungraceful  negligence  of  attire 
which  a  young  man  of  fashion  sometimes  affects. 

So  Charles  took  with  him  into  the  country  the  most  charm-, 
ing  of  shooting  costumes,  the  sweetest  thing  in  hunting-knives 
and  sheaths,  and  a  perfect  beauty  of  a  rifle.  He  packed  up  a 
most  tasteful  collection  of  waistcoats :  gray,  white,  black, 
beetle-green  shot  with  gold,  speckled  and  spangled ;  double 
waistcoats,  waistcoats  with  rolled  collars,  stand-up  collars, 
turned-down  collars,  open  at  the  throat,  buttoned  up  to  the 
chin  with  a  row  of  gold  buttons.  He  took  samples  of  all 
the  ties  and  cravats  in  favor  at  that  epoch.  He  took  two 
of  Buisson's  coats.  He  took  his  finest  linen,  and  the  dress- 
ing-case with  gold  fittings  that  his  mother  had  given  him. 
He  took  all  his  dandy's  paraphernalia,  not  forgetting  an 
enchanting  little  writing-case,  the  gift  of  the  most  amiable  of 
women  (for  him  at  least),  a  great  lady  whom  he  called  Annette, 
and  who  at  that  moment  was  traveling  with  her  husband  in 
Scotland,  a  victim  to  suspicions  which  demanded  the  tem- 
porary sacrifice  of  her  happiness. 

In  short,  his  cargo  of  Parisian  frivolities  was  as  complete  as 
it  was  possible  to  make  it ;  nothing  had  been  omitted,  from 
the  horsewhip,  useful  as  a  preliminary,  to  the  pair  of  richly- 
chased  and  mounted  pistols  that  terminate  a  duel.  There 
was  all  the  ploughing  gear  required  by  a  young  idler  in  the 
field  of  life. 

His  father  had  told  him  to  travel  alone  and  modestly,  and 
he  had  obeyed.  He  had  come  in  the  coupe  of  the  diligence, 
which  he  secured  all  to  himself;  and  was  not  ill-satisfied  to 


42  EUGENIE   GRAND ET. 

save  wear,  in  this  way,  to  a  smart  and  comfortable  traveling 
carriage  which  he  had  ordered,  and  in  which  he  meant  to  go 

to  meet  his  Annette,  the  aforesaid   great  lady  who etc., 

and  whom  he  was  to  rejoin  next  June  at  Baden-Baden. 

Charles  expected  to  meet  scores  of  people  during  his  visit 
to  his  uncle ;  he  expected  to  have  some  shooting  on  his 
uncle's  land;  he  expected,  in  short,  to  find  a  large  house 
on  a  large  estate  ;  he  had  not  thought  to  find  his  relatives 
in  Saumur  at  all ;  he  had  only  found  out  that  they  lived 
there  by  asking  the  way  to  Froidfond,  and  even  after  this 
discovery  he  expected  to  see  them  in  a  large  mansion.  But 
whether  his  uncle  lived  in  Saumur  or  at  Froidfond,  he  was 
determined  to  make  his  first  appearance  properly,  so  he  had 
assumed  a  most  fascinating  traveling  costume,  made  with  the 
simplicity  that  is  the  perfection  of  art,  a  most  adorable  crea- 
tion, to  use  the  word  which  in  those  days  expressed  superlative 
praise  of  the  special  qualities  of  a  thing  or  of  a  man.  At 
Tours  he  had  summoned  a  hairdresser,  and  his  handsome 
chestnut  hair  was  curled  afresh.  He  had  changed  his  linen 
and  put  on  a  black  satin  cravat,  which,  in  combination  with  a 
round  collar,  made  a  very  becoming  setting  for  a  pale  and 
satirical  face.  A  long  overcoat,  fitting  tightly  at  the  waist, 
gave  glimpses  of  a  cashmere  waistcoat  with  a  rolled  collar, 
and  beneath  this  again  a  second  waistcoat  of  some  white 
material.  His  watch  was  carelessly  thrust  into  a  side  pocket, 
and  save  in  so  far  as  a  gold  chain  secured  it  to  a  button-hole, 
its  continuance  there  appeared  to  be  purely  accidental.  His 
gray  trousers  were  buttoned  at  the  sides,  and  the  seams  were 
adorned  with  designs  embroidered  in  black  silk.  A  pair  of 
gray  gloves  had  nothing  to  dread  from  contact  with  a  gold- 
headed  cane,  which  he  managed  to  admiration.  A  discrim- 
inating taste  was  evinced  throughout  the  costume,  and  shone 
conspicuous  in  the  traveling  cap.  Only  a  Parisian,  and  a 
Parisian  moreover  from  some  remote  and  lofty  sphere,  could 
trick  himself  out  in  such  attire,  and  bring  all  its  absurd  details 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  43 

into  harmony  by  coxcombry  carried  to  such  a  pitch  that  \y 
ceased  to  be  ridiculous ;  this  young  man  carried  it  off,  more- 
over,  with  a  swaggering  air  befitting  a  dead  shot,  conscious 
of  the  possession  of  a  handsome  pair  of  pistols  and  the  good 
graces  of  an  Annette. 

If,  moreover,  you  wish  to  thoroughly  understand  the  surprise 
with  which  the  Saumurois  and  the  young  Parisian  mutually 
regarded  each  other,  you  must  behold,  as  did  the  former,  the 
radiant  vision  of  this  elegant  traveler  shining  in  the  gloomy 
old  room,  as  well  as  the  figures  that  composed  the  family  pic- 
ture that  met  the  stranger's  eyes.  There  sat  the  Cruchots ; 
try  to  imagine  them. 

To  begin  with,  all  three  took  snuff,  with  utter  disregard  of 
personal  cleanliness  or  of  the  black  deposit  with  which  their 
shirt  frills  were  encrusted.  Their  limp  silk  handkerchiefs  were 
twisted  into  a  thick  rope,  and  wound  tightly  about  their  necks. 
Their  collars  were  crumpled  and  soiled,  their  linen  was  dingy  ; 
there  was  such  a  vast  accumulation  of  underwear  in  their 
presses,  that  it  was  only  necessary  to  wash  twice  in  the  year, 
and  the  linen  acquired  a  bad  color  with  lying  by.  Age  and 
ugliness  might  have  wrought  together  to  produce  a  master- 
piece in  them.  Their  hard-featured,  furrowed,  and  wrinkled 
faces  were  in  keeping  with  their  creased  and  threadbare  cloth- 
ing, and  both  they  and  their  garments  were  worn,  shrunken, 
twisted  out  of  shape.  Dwellers  in  country  places  are  apt  to 
grow  more  or  less  slovenly  and  careless  of  their  appearance ; 
they  cease  by  degrees  to  dress  for  others  ;  the  career  of  a  pair 
of  gloves  is  indefinitely  prolonged,  there  is  a  general  want  of 
freshness  and  a  decided  neglect  of  detail.  The  slovenliness 
of  the  Cruchots,  therefore,  was  not  conspicuous  ;  they  were 
in  harmony  with  the  rest  of  the  company,  for  there  was  one 
point  on  which  both  Cruchotins  and  Grassinistes  were  agreed 
for  the  most  part — they  held  the  fashions  in  horror. 

The  Parisian  assumed  his  eyeglass  again  in  order  to  study 
the  curious  accessories  of  the  room ;    his  eyes  traveled  over 


44  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

the  rafters  in  the  ceiling,  over  the  dingy  panels  covered  with 
fly-spots  in  sufficient  abundance  to  punctuate  the  whole  of  the 
''Encyclopedic  methodique"  and  the  "  Moniteur  "  besides. 
The  loto  players  looked  up  at  this  and  stared  at  him ;  if  a 
giraffe  had  been  in  their  midst  they  could  hardly  have  gazed 
with  more  eager  curiosity.  Even  M.  des  Grassins  and  his  son, 
who  had  beheld  a  man  of  fashion  before  in  the  course  of  their 
lives,  shared  in  the  general  amazement ;  perhaps  they  felt  the 
indefinable  influence  of  the  general  feeling  about  the  stranger, 
perhaps  they  regarded  him  not  unapprovingly.  "You  see 
how  they  dress  in  Paris,"  their  satirical  glances  seemed  to  say 
to  their  neighbors. 

One  and  all  were  at  liberty  to  watch  Charles  at  their 
leisure,  without  any  fear  of  offending  the  master  of  the  house, 
for  by  this  time  Grandet  was  deep  in  a  long  letter  which  he 
held  in  his  hand.  He  had  taken  the  only  candle  from  the 
table  beside  him,  without  any  regard  for  the  convenience  of 
his  guests  or  for  their  pleasure. 

It  seemed  to  Eugenie,  who  had  never  in  her  life  beheld 
such  a  paragon,  that  her  cousin  was  some  seraphic  vision,  some 
creature  fallen  from  the  skies.  The  perfume  exhaled  by  those 
shining  locks,  so  gracefully  curled,  was  delightful  to  her.  She 
would  fain  have  passed  her  fingers  over  the  delicate,  smooth 
surface  of  those  wonderful  gloves.  She  envied  Charles  his 
little  hands,  his  complexion,  the  youthful  refinement  of  his 
features.  In  fact,  the  sight  of  her  cousin  gave  her  the  same 
sensations  of  exquisite  pleasure  that  might  be  aroused  in  a 
young  man  by  the  contemplation  of  the  fanciful  portraits  of 
ladies  in  English  "Keepsakes,"  portraits  drawn  by  Westall 
and  engraved  by  Finden,  with  a  burin  so  skillful  that  you  fear 
to  breathe  upon  the  vellum  surface  lest  the  celestial  vision 
should  disappear.  And  yet — how  should  the  impression  pro- 
duced by  a  young  exquisite  upon  an  ignorant  girl  whose  life 
was  spent  in  darning  stockings  and  mending  her  father's 
clothes,  in  the  dirty  wainscoted  window  embrasure  whence,  in 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  45 

an  hour,  she  saw  scarcely  one  passer-by  in  the  silent  street,  / 
how  should  her  dim  impressions  be  conveyed  by  such    an 
image  as  this? 

Charles  drew  from  his  pocket  a  handkerchief  embroidered 
by  the  great  lady  who  was  traveling  in  Scotland.  It  was  a 
dainty  piece  of  work  wrought  by  love,  in  hours  that  were  lost 
to  love ;  Eugenie  gazed  at  her  cousin,  and  wondered,  was  he 
really  going  to  use  it  ?  Charles'  manners,  his  way  of  adjusting 
his  eyeglass,  his  superciliousness,  his  affectations,  his  manifest 
contempt  for  the  little  box  which  had  but  lately  given  so 
much  pleasure  to  the  wealthy  heiress,  and  which  in  his  eyes 
seemed  to  be  a  very  absurd  piece  of  rubbish  ;  everything, 
in  short,  which  had  given  offense  to  the  Cruchots  and  the 
Grassinistes  pleased  Eugenie  so  much  that  she  lay  awake  for 
long  that  night  thinking  about  this  phoenix  of  a  cousin. 

Meanwhile  the  numbers  were  drawn  but  languidly,  and  very 
soon  the  loto  came  to  an  end  altogether.  Big  Nanon  came 
into  the  room  and  said  aloud,  "  Madame,  you  will  have  to 
give  me  some  sheets  to  make  the  gentleman's  bed." 

Mme  Grandet  disappeared  with  Nanon,  and  Mme.  des 
Grassins  said  in  a  low  voice,  "  Let  us  keep  our  sous,  and  give 
up  the  game." 

Each  player  took  back  his  coin  from  the  chipped  saucer 
which  held  the  stakes.  Then  there  was  a  general  stir,  and  a 
wheeling  movement  in  the  direction  of  the  fire. 

"Is  the  game  over?"  inquired  Grandet,  still  reading  his 
letter. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  answered  Mme.  des  Grassins,  seating  herself 
next  to  Charles. 

Eugenie  left  the  room  to  help  her  mother  and  Nanon, 
moved  by  a  thought  that  came  with  the  vague  feeling  that 
stirred  her  heart  for  the  first  time.  If  she  had  been  ques- 
tioned by  a  skillful  confessor,  she  would  have  no  doubt  ad- 
mitted that  her  thought  was  neither  for  Nanon  nor  for  her 
mother,  but   that  she  was  seized  with  a  restless  and  urgent 


46  EUGENIE    GRANDE!. 

desire  to  see  that  all  was  right  in  her  cousin's  room,  to  busy 
herself  on  her  cousin's  account,  to  see  that  nothing  was  for- 
gotten, to  think  of  everything  he  might  require,  and  to  make 
sure  that  it  was  there,  to  make  certain  that  everything  was  as 
neat  and  pretty  as  might  be.  She  alone,  so  Eugenie  thought 
already,  could  enter  into  her  cousin's  ideas  and  understand  his 
tastes. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  came  just  at  the  right  moment. 
Her  mother  and  Nanon  were  about  to  leave  the  room  in  the 
belief  that  it  was  all  in  readiness;  Eugenie  convinced  them 
in  a  moment  that  everything  was  yet  to  do.  She  filled 
Nanon's  head  with  these  ideas:  the  sheets  had  not  been  aired, 
Nanon  must  bring  the  warming-pan,  there  were  ashes,  there 
was  a  fire  downstairs.  She  herself  covered  the  old  table  with 
a  clean  white  cloth,  and  told  Nanon  to  mind  and  be  sure  to 
change  it  every  morning.  There  must  be  a  good  fire  in  the 
room  ;  she  overcame  her  mother's  objections,  she  induced 
Nanon  to  put  a  good  supply  of  firewood  outside  in  the  pas- 
sage, and  to  say  nothing  about  it  to  her  father.  She  ran 
downstairs  into  the  parlor,  sought  in  one  of  the  sideboards  for 
an  old  japanned  tray  which  had  belonged  to  the  late  M.  de  la 
Bertelliere,  and  from  the  same  source  she  procured  a  hexagonal 
crystal  glass,  a  little  gilt  spoon  with  almost  all  the  gilding 
rubbed  off,  and  an  old  slender-necked  glass  bottle  with  Cupids 
engraved  upon  it;  these  she  deposited  in  triumph  on  a  corner 
of  the  chirnney-piece.  More  ideas  had  crowded  up  in  her 
mind  during  that  one  quarter  of  an  hour  than  in  all  the  years 
since  she  had  come  into  the  world. 

"Mamma,"  she  began,  "he  will  never  be  able  to  bear 
the  smell  of  a  tallow  candle.  Suppose  that  we  buy  a  wax 
candle?" 

She  fled,  lightly  as  a  bird,  to  find  her  purse,  and  drew 
thence  the  five  francs  which  she  had  received  for  the  month's 
expenses. 

"  Here,  Nanon,  be  quick." 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  47 

f 

"  But  what  will  your  father  say  ?  " 

This  dreadful  objection  was  raised  by  Mme.  Grandet,  when 
she  saw  her  daughter  with  an  old  Sevres  china  sugar-basin 
which  Grandet  had  brought  back  with  him  from  the  chateau 
at  Froidfond. 

"And  where  is  the  sugar  to  come  from?"  she  went  on. 
"Are  you  mad  ?  " 

"  Nanon  can  easily  buy  the  sugar  when  she  goes  for  the 
candle,  mamma." 

"  But  how  about  your  father  ?  " 

"  Is  it  a  right  thing  that  his  nephew  should  not  have  a 
glass  of  eau  sucree  (sugar  and  water)  to  drink  if  he  happens  to 
want  it?     Besides,  he  will  not  notice  it." 

"Your  father  always  notices  things,"  said  Mme.  Grandet, 
shaking  her  head. 

Nanon  hesitated  ;  she  knew  her  master. 

"  Do  go,  Nanon  ;  it  is  my  birthday  to-day,  you  know  I  " 

Nanon  burst  out  laughing  in  spite  of  herself  at  the  first 
joke  her  young  mistress  had  ever  been  known  to  make,  and 
did  her  bidding. 

While  Eugenie  and  her  mother  were  doing  their  best  to 
adorn  the  room  which  M.  Grandet  had  allotted  to  his  nephew, 
Mme.  des  Grassins  was  bestowing  her  attention  on  Charles, 
and  making  abundant  use  of  her  eyes  as  she  did  so. 

"  You  are  very  brave,"  she  said,  "  to  leave  the  pleasures  of 
the  capital  in  winter  in  order  to  come  to  stay  in  Saumur. 
But  if  you  are  not  frightened  away  at  first  sight  of  us,  you 
shall  see  that  even  here  we  can  amuse  ourselves."  And  she 
gave  him  a  languishing  glance,  in  true  provincial  style. 

Women  in  the  provinces  are  wont  to  affect  a  demure  and 
staid  demeanor,  which  gives  a  furtive  and  eager  eloquence  to 
their  eyes,  a  peculiarity  which  may  be  noted  in  ecclesiastics, 
for  whom  every  pleasure  is  stolen  or  forbidden.  Charles  was 
so  thoroughly  out  of  his  element  in  this  room,  it  was  all  so 
far  removed  from  the  great  chateau  and  the  splendid  surround- 


48  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

ings  in  which  he  had  thought  to  find  his  uncle,  that,  on  pay- 
ing closer  attention  to  Mme.  des  Grassins,  she  almost  re- 
minded him  of  Parisian  faces  half  obliterated  already  by 
these  strange,  new  impressions.  He  responded  graciously 
to  the  advances  which  had  been  made  to  him,  and  naturally 
they  fell  into  conversation. 

Mme.  des  Grassins  gradually  lowered  her  voice  to  tones 
suited  to  the  nature  of  her  confidences.  Both  she  and 
Charles  Grandet  felt  a  need  of  mutual  confidence,  of  explana- 
tions and  an  understanding ;  so  after  a  few  minutes  spent  in 
coquettish  chatter  and  jests  that  covered  a  serious  purpose,  the 
wily  provincial  dame  felt  free  to  converse  without  fear  of  being 
overheard,  under  cover  of  a  conversation  on  the  sale  of  the 
vintage,  the  one  all-absorbing  topic  at  that  moment  in 
Saumur. 

"  If  you  will  honor  us  with  a  visit,"  she  said,  "you  will 
certainly  do  us  a  pleasure ;  my  husband  and  I  shall  be  very 
glad  to  see  you.  Our  salon  is  the  only  one  in  Saumur  where 
you  will  meet  both  the  wealthy  merchant  society  and  the 
noblesse.  We  ourselves  belong  in  a  manner  to  both  ;  they  do 
not  mix  with  each  other  at  all  except  at  our  house  ;  they  come 
to  us  because  they  find  it  amusing.  My  husband,  I  am  proud 
to  say,  is  very  highly  thought  of  in  both  circles.  So  we  will 
do  our  best  to  beguile  the  tedium  of  your  stay.  If  you  are 
going  to  remain  with  the  Grandets,  what  will  become  of  you  ! 
Bon  Dieu  /  Your  uncle  is  a  miser,  his  mind  runs  on  nothing 
but  his  vine-cuttings;  your  aunt  is  a  saint  who  cannot  put 
two  ideas  together ;  and  your  cousin  is  a  silly  little  thing,  a 
common  sort  of  girl,  with  no  breeding  and  no  money,  who 
spends  her  life  in  mending  dish-cloths." 

11  'Tis  a  very  pretty  woman,"  said  Charles  to  himself; 
Mine,  des  Grassins'  coquettish  glances  had  not  been  thrown 
away  upon  him. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  you  mean  to  monopolize  the  gentle- 
man," said  the  big  banker,  laughing,  to  his  wife,  an  unlucky 


t 

EUGENIE    GRANDET.  49 

observation,  followed  by  remarks  more  or  less  spiteful  from 
the  notary  and  the  president;  but  the  Abbe  gave  them  a 
shrewd  glance,  took  a  pinch  of  snuff,  and  handed  his  snuff- 
box to  the  company,  while  he  gave  expression  to  their 
thoughts,  "Where  could  the  gentleman  have  found  any  one 
better  qualified  to  do  the  honors  of  Saumur?"   he  said. 

"Come,  Abbe,  what  do'  you  mean  by  that?"  asked  M. 
des  Grassins.  -> 

"It  is  meant,  sir,  in  the  most  flattering  sense  for  you,  for 
madame,  for  the  town  of  Saumur,  and  for  this  gentleman," 
added  the  shrewd  ecclesiastic,  turning  towards  Charles. 
Without  appearing  to  pay  the  slightest  heed  to  their  talk,  he 
had  managed  to  guess  the  drift  of  it. 

Adolphe  des  Grassins  spoke  at  last,  with  what  was  meant  to 
be  an  off-hand  manner.  "I  do  not  know,"  he-said,  address- 
ing Charles,  "whether  you  have  any  recollection  of  me;  I 
once  had  the  pleasure  of  dancing  in  the  same  quadrille  at  a 
ball  given  by  M.  le  Baron  de  Nucingen,  and " 

"I  remember  it  perfectly,"  answered  Charles,  surprised  to 
find  himself  the  object  of  general  attention. 

"Is  this  gentleman  your  son?"  he  asked  of  Mme.  des 
Grassins. 

The  Abbe  gave  her  a  spiteful  glance. 

"  Yes,  I  am  his  mother,"  she  answered. 

"You  must  have  been  very  young  when  you  came  to 
Parish"   Charles  went  on,  speaking  to  Adolphe. 

"We  cannot  help  ourselves,  sir,"  said  the  Abbe.  "  Our 
babes  are  scarcely  weaned  before  we  send  them  to  Babylon." 

Mme.  des  Grassins  gave  the  Abbe  a  strangely  penetrating 
glance  :  she  seemed  to  be  seeking  the  meaning  of  those  words. 

"You  must  go  into  the  country,"  the  Abbe  went  on,  "  if 
you  want  to  find  women  not  much  on  the  other  side  of  thirty, 
with  a  grown-up  son  a  licentiate  of  law,  who  look  as  fresh  and 
youthful  as^Mme.  des  Grassins.  It  only  seems  like  the  other 
day  when  the  young  men  and  the  ladies  stood  on  chairs  to  see 
4 


50  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

you  dance,  madame,"  the  Abbe  added,  turning  towards  his 
fair  antagonist;  "your  triumphs  are  as  fresh  in  my  memory 
as  if  they  had  happened  yesterday." 

"Oh  !  the  old  wretch!"  said  Mme.  des  Grassins  to  her- 
self, "  is  it  possible  that  he  has  guessed?  " 

"It  looks  as  though  I  should  have  a  great  success  in 
Saumur,"  thought  Charles.  He  unbuttoned  his  overcoat  and 
stood  with  his  hands  in  his  waistcoat  pocket,  gazing  into 
space,  striking  the  attitude  which  Chantrey  thought  fit  to 
give  to  Byron  in  his  statue  of  that  poet. 

Meanwhile  Grandet's  inattention,  or  rather  his  preoccupa- 
tion, during  the  reading  of  his  letter  had  escaped  neither  the 
notary  nor  the  magistrate.  Both  of  them  tried  to  guess  at 
the  contents  by  watching  the  almost  imperceptible  changes  in 
the  worthy  man's  face,  on  which  all  the  light  of  a  candle  was 
concentrated.  The  vine-grower  was  hard  put  to  it  to  preserve 
his  wonted  composure.  His  expression  must  be  left  to  the 
imagination,  but  here  is  the  fatal  letter : 

"  My  Brother: — It  is  nearly  twenty-three  years  now  since 
we  saw  each  other.  The  last  time  we  met  it  was  to  make 
arrangements  for  my  marriage,  and  we  parted  in  high  spirits. 
Little  did  I  then  think,  when  you  were  congratulating  your- 
self on  our  prosperity,  that  one  day  you  would  be  the  sole 
hope  and  stay  of  our  family.  By  the  time  that  this  letter  reaches 
your  hands,  I  shall  be  no  more.  In  my  position,  I  could  not 
survive  the  disgrace  of  bankruptcy ;  I  have  held  up  my  head 
above  the  surface  till  the  last  moment,  hoping  to  weather  the 
storm ;  it  is  all  of  no  use,  I  must  sink  now.  Just  after  the 
failure  of  my  stockbroker  came  the  failure  of  Roguin  (my 
notary)  ;  my  last  resources  have  been  swept  away,  and  I  have 
nothing  left.  It  is  my  heavy  misfortune  to  owe  nearly  four 
millions ;  my  assets  only  amount  to  twenty-five  per  cent,  of 
my  debts.  I  hold  heavy  stocks  of  wine,  and,  owing  to  the 
abundance  and  good  quality  of  your  vintages,  they  have  fallen 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  51 

ruinously,  in  value.  In  three  days'  time  all  Paris  will  say, 
<  M.  Grandet  was  a  rogue  !  '  and  I,  honest  though  I  am,  shall 
lie  wrapped  in  a  winding  sheet  of  infamy.  I  have  despoiled 
my  own  son  of  his  mother's  fortune  and  of  the  spotless  name 
on  which  I  have  brought  disgrace.  He  knows  nothing  of  all 
this — the  unhappy  child  whbm  I  have  idolized.  Happily  for 
him,  he  did  not  know  when  we  bade  each  other  good-bye, 
and  my  heart  overflowed  with  tenderness  for  him,  how  soon 
it  should  cease  to  beat.  Will  he^not  curse  me  some  day? 
Oh  !  my  brother,  my  brother,  a  child's  curse  is  an  awful 
thing  !  If  we  curse  our  children,  they  may  appeal  against  us, 
but  their  curses  cling  to  us  for  ever  !  -  Grandet,  you  are  my 
older  brother,  you  must  shield  me  from  this ;  do  not  let 
Charles  say  bitter  things  of  me  when  I  am  lying  in  my  grave. 
Oh  !  my  brother,  if  every  word  in  this  letter  were  written  in 
my  tears,  in  my  blood,  it  would  not  cost  me  such  bitter 
anguish,  for  then  I  should  be  weeping,  bleeding,  dying,  and 
the  agony  would  be  ended  ;  but  now  I  am  still  suffering — I 
see  the  death  before  .me  with  dry  eyes.  You  therefore  are 
Charles'  father  now  !  He  has  no  relations  on  his  mother's 
side  for  reasons  which  you  know.  Why  did  I  not  defer  to 
social  prejudices  ?  Why  did  I  yield  to  love  ?  Why  did  I 
marry  the  natural  daughter  of  a  noble  ?  Charles  is  the  last 
of  his  family  ;  he  is  alone  in  the  world.     Oh  !   my  unhappy 

boy,  my  son  ! Listen,  Grandet,  I  am  asking  nothing  for 

myself,  and  you  could  scarcely  satisfy  my  creditors  if  you 
would;  your  fortune  cannot  be  sufficient  to  meet  a  demand 
of  three  millions  ;  it  is  for  my  son's  sake  that  I  write.  You 
must  know,  my  brother,  that  as  I  think  of  you  my  petition  is 
made  with  clasped  hands;  that  this  is  my  dying  prayer  to  you. 
Grandet,  I  know  that  you  will  be  a  father  to  him  ;  I  know 
that  I  shall  not  ask  in  vain,  and  the  sight  of  my  pistols  does 
not  cause  n\e  a  pang. 

"  And  then  Charles  is  very  fond  of  me ;  I  was  kind  to  him, 
I  never  said  him  nay ;  he  will  not  curse  me  !     For  the  rest, 


52  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

you  will  see  how  sweet-tempered  and  obedient  he  is ;  he  takes 
after  his  mother;  he  will  never  give  you  any  trouble,  poor 
boy  !  He  is  accustomed  to  luxurious  ways  ;  he  knows  noth- 
ing of  the  hardships  that  you  and  I  experienced  in  the  early 

days  when  we  were  poor And  now  he  has  not  a  penny, 

and  he  is  alone  in  the  world,  for  all  his  friends  are  sure  to 
leave  him,  and  it  is  I  who  have  brought  these  humiliations 
upon  him.  Ah  !  if  I  had  only  the  power  to  send  him  straight 
to  heaven  now,  where  his  mother  is  !  This  is  madness  !  To 
go  back  to  my  misfortunes  and  Charles'  share  in  them.  1 
have  sent  him  to  you  so  that  you  may  break  the  news  of  my 
death  and  explain  to  him  what  his  future  must  be.  Be  a  father 
to  him ;  ah  !  more  than  that,  be  an  indulgent  father !  Do 
not  expect  him  to  give  up  his  idle  ways  all  at  once ;  it  would 
kill  him.  On  my  knees  I  beg  him  to  renounce  all  claims  to 
his  mother's  fortune;  but  I  need  not  ask  that  of  him,  his 
sense  of  honor  will  prevent  him  from  adding  himself  to  the 
list  of  my  creditors;  see  that  he  resigns  his  claims  when  the 
right  time  comes.  And  you  must  lay  everything  before  him, 
Grandet — the  struggle  and  the  hardships  that  he  will  have  to 
face  in  the  life  that  I  have  spoiled  for  him;  and  then  if  he 
has  any  tenderness  still  left  for  me,  tell  him  from  me  that  all 
is  not  lost  for  him — be  sure  you  tell  him  that.  Work,  which 
was  our  salvation,  can  restore  the  fortune  which  I  have  lost ; 
and  if  he  will  listen  to  his  father's  voice,  which  would  fain 
make  itself  heard  yet  a  little  while  from  the  grave,  let  him 
leave  this  country  and  go  to  the  Indies  !  And,  brother,  Charles 
is  honest  and  energetic ;  you  will  help  him  with  his  first  trad- 
ing venture,  I  know  you  will ;  he  would  die  sooner  than  not 
repay  you;  you  will  do  as  much  as  that  for  him,  Grandet,  or 
you  will  lay  up  regrets  for  yourself.  Ah  !  if  my  boy  finds  no 
kindness  and  no  help  in  you,  I  shall  for  ever  pray  God  to 
punish  your  hard-heartedness.  If  I  could  have  withheld  a  few 
payments,  I  might  have  saved  a  little  sum  for  him — he  surely 
has  a  right  to  some  of  his  mother's  fortune — but  the  payments 


f 

EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  53 

at  the  end  of  the  month  taxed  all  my  resources,  and  I  could 
not  manage  it.  I  would  fain  have  died  with  my  mind  at  rest 
about  his  future ;  I  wish  I  could  have  received  your  solemn 
promise,  coming  straight  from  your  hand  it  would  have  brought 
warmth  with  it  for  me;  but  time  presses.  Even  while  Charles 
is  on  his  way,  I  am  compelled  to  file  my  schedule.  My  affairs 
are  all  in  order;  I  am  endeavoring  so  to  arrange  everything 
that  it  will  be  evident  that  my  failure  is  due  neither  to  care- 
lessness nor  to  dishonesty,  but  simply  to  disasters  which  I 
could  not  help.  Is  it  not  for  Charles'  sake  that  I  take  these 
pains?  Farewell,  my  brother.  May  God  bless  you  in  every 
way  for  the  generosity  with  which  you  (as  I  cannot  doubt)  will 
accept  and  fulfill  this  trust.  There  will  be  one  voice  that  will 
never  cease  to  pray  for  you  in  the  world  whither  we  must  all 
go  sooner  or  later,  and  where  I  am  even  now. 

"  Victor- Ange-Guillaume  Grandet." 

"So  you  are  having  a  chat?"  said  old  Grandet,  folding  up 
the  letter  carefully  in  the  original  creases,  and  putting  it  into 
his  waistcoat  pocket. 

He  looked  at  his  "nephew  in  a  shy  and  embarrassed  way, 
seeking  to  dissemble  his  feelings  and  his  calculations. 

"  Do  you  feel  warmer  ?  " 

"Iara  very  comfortable,  my  dear  uncle." 

"  Well,  whatever  are  the  women  after  ?  "  his  uncle  went  on  ; 
the  fact  that  his  nephew  would  sleep  in  the  house  had  by  that 
time  slipped  from  his  memory.  Eugenie  and  Mme.  Grandet 
came  into  the  room  as  he  spoke. 

"Is  everything  ready  upstairs?"  the  good  man  inquired. 
He  had  now  quite  recovered  himself,  and  recollected  the  facts 
of  the  case. 

"Yes,  father." 

"Very Veil  then,  nephew,  if  you  are  feeling  tired,  Nanon 
will  show  you  to  your  room.  Lord  !  there  is  nothing  very 
smart  about  it,  but  you  will  overlook  that  here  among  poor 


54  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

vine-growers,  who  never  have  a  penny  to  bless  themselves 
with.     The  taxes  swallow  up  everything  we  have." 

"  Wedon'twant  to  be  intrusive,  Grandet,"  said-the  banker. 
"  You  and  your  nephew  may  have  some  things  to  talk  over  ; 
we  will   wish  you  good-evening.     Good-bye  till  to-morrow." 

Every  one  rose  at  this,  and  took  leave  after  their  several 
fashions.  The  old  notary  went  out  under  the  archway  to  look 
for  his  lantern,  lighted  it,  and  offered  to  see  the  des  Grassins 
to  their  house.  Mme.  des  Grassins  had  not  been  prepared 
for  the  event  which  had  brought  the  evening  so  early  to  a 
close,  and  her  maid  had  not  appeared. 

"Will  you  honor  me  by  taking  my  arm,  madame  ?  "  said 
the  Abbe  Cruchot,  addressing  Mme.  des  Grassins. 

"Thank  you,  M.  l'Abbe,"  said  the  lady  drily;  "my  son 
is  with  me." 

"I  am  not  a  compromising  acquaintance  for  a  lady,"  the 
Abbe  continued. 

"  Take  M.  Cruchot's  arm,"  said  her  husband. 

The  Abbe,  with  the  fair  lady  on  his  arm,  walked  on  quickly 
for  several  paces,  so  as  to  put  a  distance  between  them  and  the 
rest  of  the  party. 

"  That  young  man  is  very  good-looking,  madame,"  he  said, 
with  a  pressure  on  her  arm  to  give  emphasis  to  the  remark. 
"  'Tis  good-bye  to  the  baskets,  the  vintage  is  over  !  You  must 
give  up  Mile.  Grandet ;  Eugenie  is  meant  for  her  cousin. 
Unless  he  happens  to  be  smitten  with  some  fair  face  in  Paris, 
your  son  Adolphe  will  have  yet  another  rival " 

"Nonsense,  M.  l'Abbe." 

"  It  will  not  be  long  before  the  young  man  will  find  out 
that  Eugenie  is  a  girl  who  has  nothing  to  say  for  herself;  and 
she  has  gone  off  in  looks.  Did  you  notice  her?  She  was  as 
yellow  as  a  quince  this  evening." 

"  Which,  possibly,  you  have  already  pointed  out  to  her 
cousin  ?  " 

"  Indeed,  I  have  not  taken  the  trouble " 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  55 

"If  you  always  sit  beside  Eugenie,  madame,"  interrupted 
the  Abbe,  "you  will  not  need  to  tell  the  young  man  much 
about  his  cousin;  he  can  make  his  own  comparisons." 

"  He  promised  mefat  once  to  come  to  dine  with  us  the  day 
after  to-morrow." 

"  Ah  !  madame,"  said  the  Abbe,  "  if  you  would  only " 

"  Would  only  what,  M.  l'Abbe?  Do  you  mean  to  put  evil 
suggestions  into  my  mind  ?  I  have  not  come  to  the  age  of 
thirty-nine  with  a  spotless  reputation  (heaven  be  thanked)  to 
compromise  myself  now — not  for  the  empire  of  the  Great 
Mogul  !  We  are  both  of  us  old  enough  to  know  what  that 
kind  of  talk  means ;  and  I  must  say  that  your  ideas  do  not 
square  very  well  with  your  sacred  calling.  For  shame  !  this 
is  worthy  of  '  Faublas.'  " 

"  So  you  have  read  '  Faublas?  '  " 

"No,  M.  l'Abbe;  '  Les  Liaisons  dangereuses  '  (dangerous 
entanglements)  is  what  I  meant  to  say." 

"  Oh  !  that  book  is  infinitely  more  moral,"  said  the  Abbe, 
laughing.  "  fiut  you  would  make  me  out  to  be  as  depraved 
as  young  men  are  nowadays.     I  only  meant  that  you " 

"  Do  you  dare  to  tell  me  that  you  meant  no  harm  ?  The 
thing  is  plain  enough.  If  that  young  fellow  (who  certainly  is 
good-looking,  that  I  grant  you)  paid  court  to  me,  it  would 
not  be  for  the  sake  of  my  interest  with  that  cousin  of  his. 
In  Paris,  I  know,  there  are  tender  mothers  who  sacrifice  them- 
selves thus  for  their  children's  happiness  and  welfare,  but  we 
are  not  in  Paris,  M.  l'Abbe." 

"  No,  madame." 

"And,"  continued  she,  "neither  Adolphe  nor  I  would 
purchase  a  hundred  millions  at  such  a  price." 

"  Madame,  I  said  nothing  about  a  hundred  millions.  Per- 
haps such  a  temptation  might  have  been  too  much  for  either 
of  us.  Still,  in  my  opinion,  an  honest  woman  may  indulge 
in  a  little  harmless  coquetry,  in  the  strictest  propriety;  it  is 
a  part  of  her  social  duties,  and •»" 


56  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

"Do  you  think  so?" 

"Do  we  not  owe  it  to  ourselves,  madame,  to  endeavor  to 

be  as  agreeable  as   possible  to  others? Permit  me  to  blow 

my  nose.  Take  my  word  for  it,  madame,"  resumed  the 
Abbe,  "that  he  certainly  regarded  you  with  rather  more 
admiration  than  he  saw  fit  to  bestow  on  me,  but  I  can  forgive 
him  for  honoring  beauty  rather  than  gray  hairs " 

"It  is  perfectly  clear,"  said  the  president  in  his  thick  voice, 
"why  M.  Grandet  of  Paris  is  sending  his  son  to  Saumur  ;  he 
has  made  up  his  mind  to  make  a  match " 

"Then  why  should  the  cousin  have  dropped  from  the  skies 
like  this?"  answered  the  notary. 

"  There  is  nothing  in  that,"  remarked  M.  des  Grassins, 
"  old  Grandet  is  so  close." 

"Des  Grassins,"  said  his  wife,  "  I  have  asked  that  young 
man  to  come  and  dine  with  us.  So  you  must  go  to  M.  and 
Mme.  de  Larsonniere,  dear,  and  ask  them  to  come,  and  the 
du  Hautoys ;  and  they  must  bring  that  pretty  girl  of  theirs, 
of  course  ;  I  hope  she  will  dress  herself  properly  for  once. 
Her  mother  is  jealous  of  her,  and  makes  her  look  such  a 
figure.  I  hope  that  you  gentlemen  will  do  us  the  honor  of 
coming  too?"  she  added,  stopping  the  procession  in  order  to 
turn  to  the  two  Cruchots,  who,  seeing  the  Abbe  in  conversa- 
tion with  Mme.  des  Grassins,  had  fallen  behind. 

"Here  we  are  at  your  door,  madame,"  said  the  notary. 
The  three  Cruchots  took  leave  of  the  three  des  Grassins,  and 
on  their  way  home  the  talent  for  pulling  each  other  to  pieces, 
which  provincials  possess  in  perfection,  was  fully  called  into 
play;  the  great  event  of  the  evening  was  exhaustively  dis- 
cussed, and  all  its  bearings  upon  the  respective  positions  of 
Cruchotins  and  Grassinistes  were  duly  considered.  Clearly 
it  behooved  bothalike  to  prevent  Eugenie  from  falling  in  love 
with  her  cousin,  and  to  hinder  Charles  from  thinking  of 
Eugenie.  Sly  hints,  plausible  insinuations,  faint  praise,  vin- 
dications undertaken  with  an  air  of  candid  friendliness — what 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  57 

resistance  could   the  Parisian  offer  when  the  air  hurtled  with 
deceptive  weapons  such  as  these  ? 

As  soon  as  the  four  relatives  were  left  alone  in  the  great 
room,  M.  Grandet  spoke  to  his  nephew. 

"  We  must  go  to  bed.  \l  is  too  late  to  begin  to  talk 
to-night  of  the  business  that  brought  you  here;  to-morrow 
will  be  time  enough  for  that.  We  have  breakfast  here  at  eight 
o'clock.  At  noon  we  take  a  snatch  of  something,  a  little 
fruit,  a  morsel  of  bread,  and  a  glass  of  white  wine,  and,  like 
Parisians,  we  dine  at  five  o'clock.  That  is  the  way  of  it.  If 
you  care  to  take  a  look  at  the  town,  or  to  go  into  the  country 
round  about,  you  are  quite  free  to  do  so.  You  will  excuse 
me  if,  for  business  reasons.  I  cannot  always  accompany  you. 
Very  likely  you  will  be  told  hereabouts  that  I  am  rich  ;  'tis 
always  M.  Grandet  here  and  M.  Grandet  there.  I  let  them 
talk.  Their  babble  does, not  injure  my  credit  in  any  way. 
But  I  have  not  a  penny  to  bless  myseif  with  ;  and,  old  as  I 
am,  I  work  like  any  young  journeyman  who  has  nothing  in 
the  world  but  his  plane  and  a  pair  of  stout  arms.  Perhaps 
you  will  find  out  for  yourself  some  of  these  days  what  a  lot  of 
work  it  takes  to  earn  a  crown  when  you  have  to  toil  and  moil 
for  it  yourself.      Here,  Nanon,  bring  the  candles." 

"I  hope  you  will  find  everything  you  want,  nephew,"  said 
Mme.  Grandet;  "but  if  anything  has  been  forgotten,  you 
will  call  Nanon." 

"  It  would  be  difficult  to  want  anything,  my  dear  aunt, 
for  I  believe  I  have  brought  all  my  things  with  me.  Per- 
mit me  to  wish  you  and  my  young  cousin  good-night." 

Charles  took  a  lighted  wax-candle  from  Nanon  ;  it  was  a 
commodity  of  local  manufacture,  which  had  grown  old  in  the 
shop,  very  dingy,  very  yellow,  and  so  like  the  ordinary  tallow 
variety  that  M.  Grandet  had  no  suspicion  of  the  article  of 
luxury  before  him  ;  indeed,  it  never  entered  into  his  head  to 
imagine  that  there  could  be  such  a  thing  in  the  house. 

"  I  will  show  you  the  way,"  said  the  good  man. 

C 


58  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

One  of  the  doors  in  the  dining-room  gave  immediate 
access  to  the  archway  and  to  the  staircase  ;  but  to-night,  out 
of  compliment  to  his  guest,  Grandet  went  by  way  of  the 
passage  which  separated  the  kitchen  from  the  dining-room. 
A  folding-door,  with  a  large  oval  pane  of  glass  let  into  it, 
closed  in  the  passage  at  the  end  nearest  the  staircase,  an 
arrangement  intended  to  keep  out  the  blasts  of  cold  air  that 
rushed  through  the  archway.  With  a  like  end  in  view,  strips 
of  list  had  been  nailed  to  the  doors  ;  but  in  winter  the  east 
wind  found  its  way  in,  and  whistled  none  the  less  shrewdly 
about  the  house,  and  the  dining-room  was  seldom  even  toler- 
ably warm. 

Nanon  went  out,  drew  the  bolts  on  the  entrance  gate, 
fastened  the  door  of  the  dining-room,  went  across  to  the 
stable  to  let  loose  a  great  wolf-dog  with  a  cracked  voice ;  it 
sounded  as  though  the  animal  was.  suffering  from  laryngitis. 
His  savage  temper  was  well  known,  and  Nanon  was  the  only 
human  being  who  could  manage  him.  There  was  some  wild 
strain  in  both  these  children  of  the  fields ;  they  understood 
each  other. 
~Sry  Charles  glanced  round  at  the  dingy  yellow  walls  and  smoke- 
begrimed  ceiling,  and  saw  how  the  crazy,  worm-eaten  stairs 
shook  beneath  his  uncle's  heavy  tread ;  he  was  fast  coming  to 
his  senses,  this  was  sober  reality  indeed  !  The  place  looked 
like  a  hen-roost.  He  looked  round  questioningly  at  the  faces 
of  his  aunt  and  cousin,  but  they  were  so  thoroughly  accus- 
tomed to  the  staircase  and  its  peculiarities  that  it  never 
occurred  to  them  that  it  could  cause  any  astonishment ;  they 
took  his  signal  of  distress  for  a  simple  expression  of  friendli- 
ness, and  smiled  back  at  him  in  the  most  amiable  way.  That 
smile  was  the  last  straw ;  the  young  man  was  at  his  wits' 
end. 

"What  the  devil  made  my  father  send  me  here?  "  said  he 
to  himself. 

Arrived  on  the  first  landing,  he  saw  before  him  three  doors 


EUG&NIE   GRANDET.  59' 

painted  a  dull  red-brown  color ;  there  were  no  mouldings 
round  any  of  them,  so  that  they  would  have  been  scarcely 
visible  in  the  dusty  surface  of  the  wall  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  very  apparent  heavy  bars  of  iron  with  which  they  were 
embellished,  and  which  terminated  in  a  sort  of  rough  orna- 
mental design,  as  did  the  ends  of  the  iron  scutcheons  which 
surrounded  the  keyholes.  A  door  at  the  head  of  the  stairs, 
which  had  once  given  entrance  into  the  room  over  the  kitchen, 
was  evidently  blocked  up.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  only 
entrance  was  through  Grandet's  own  room,  and  this  room 
over  the  kitchen  was  the  vine-grower's  sanctum. 

Daylight  was  admitted  into  it  by  a  single  window  which 
looked  out  upon  the  yard,  and  which,  for  greater  security,  was 
protected  by  a  grating  of  massive  iron  bars.  The  master  of 
the  house  allowed  no  one,  not  even  Mme.  Grandet,  to  set 
foot  in  this  chamber ;  he  kept  the  right  of  entry  to  himself, 
and  sat  there,  undisturbed  and  alone,  like  an  alchemist  in  the 
midst  of  his  crucibles.  Here,  no  doubt,  there  was  some 
cunningly-contrived  and  secret  hiding-place ;  for  here  he 
stored  up  the  title-deeds  of  his  estates ;  here,  too,  he  kept  the 
delicately-adjusted  scales  in  which  he  weighed  his  gold  louis ; 
and  here  every  night  he  made  out  receipts,  wrote  acknowledg- 
ments of  sums  received,  and  laid  his  schemes,  so  that  other 
business  men  seeing  Grandet  never  busy,  and  always  prepared 
for  every  emergency,  might  have  been  excused  for  imagining 
that  he  had  a  fairy  or  familiar  spirit  at  his  beck  and  call. 
Here,  no  doubt,  when  Nanon's  snoring  shook  the  rafters, 
when  the  savage  watch-dog  bayed  and  prowled  about  the  yard, 
when  Mme.  Grandet  and  Eugenie  were  fast  asleep,  the  old 
cooper  would  come  to  be  with  his  gold,  and  hug  himself  upon 
it,  and  toy  with  it,  and  fondle  it,  and  brood  over  it,  and  so, 
with  the  intoxication  of  the  gold  upon  him,  at  last  to  sleep. 
The  walls  were  thick,  the  closed  shutters  kept  their  secret. 
He  alone  had  the  key  of  this  laboratory,  where,  if  reports 
spoke  truly,  he   pored  over  plans  on  which  every  fruit  tree 


60  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

belonging  to  him  was  mapped  out,  so  that  he  could  reckon 
out  his  crops,  so  much  to  every  vine  stem  ;  and  his  yield  of 
timber,  to  a  faggot. 

The  door  of  Eugenie's  room  was  opposite  this  closed-up 
portal,  the  room  occupied  by  M.  and  Mme.  Grandet  was  at 
the  end  of  the  landing,  and  consisted  of  the  entire  front  of 
the  house.  It  was  divided  within  by  a  partition,  Mme. 
Grandet's  chamber  was  next  to  Eugenie's,  with  which  it  com- 
municated by  a  glass  door;  the  other  half  of  the  room, 
separated  from  the  mysterious  cabinet  by  a  thick  wall,  be- 
longed to  the  master  of  the  house.  Goodman  Grandet  had 
cunningly  lodged  his  nephew  on  the  second  story,  in  an  airy 
garret  immediately  above  his  own  room,  so  that  he  could  hear 
every  sound  and  inform  himself  of  the  young  man's  goings 
and  comings,  if  the  latter  should  take  it  into  his  head  to  leave 
his  quarters. 

Eugenie  and  her  mother,  arrived  on  the  first  landing, 
kissed  each  other  and  said  good-night ;  they  took  leave  of 
Charles  in  a  few  formal  words,  spoken  with  an  apparent 
indifference,  which  in  her  heart  the  girl  was  far  from  feeling, 
and  went  to  their  rooms. 

"This  is  your  room,  nephew,"  said  Grandet,  addressing 
Charles  as  he  opened  the  door.  "If  you  should  wish  to  go 
out,  you  will  have  to  call  Nanon ;  for  if  you  don't  it  will  be 
'no  more  at  present  from  your  most  obedient,'  th-?  dog  will 
gobble  you  down  before  you  know  where  you  are.  Good- 
night, sleep  well.  Ha  !  ha  !  the  ladies  have  lighted  a  fire  in 
your  room,"  he  went  on. 

Just  at  that  moment  big  Nanon  appeared,  armed  with  a 
warming-pan. 

"  Did  any  one  ever  see  the  like  ?  "  said  M.  Grandet.  "  Do 
you  take  my  nephew  for  a  sick  woman ;  he  is  not  an  invalid. 
Just  be  off,  Nanon  !  you  and  your  hot  ashes." 

"But  the  sheets  are  damp,  sir,  and  the  gentleman  looks  as 
delicate  as  a  woman." 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  61 

"  All  right,  go  through  with  it,  since  you  have  taken  it  into 
your  head,"  said  Grandet,  shrugging  his  shoulders,  "but 
mind  you  don't  set  the  place  on  fire,"  and  the  miser  groped 
his  way  downstairs,  muttering  vaguely  to  himself. 

Charles,  breathless  with  astonishment,  was  left  among  his 
trunks.  He  looked  round  about  him,  at  the  sloping  roof 
of  the  attic,  at  the  wall-paper  of  a  pattern  peculiar  to  little 
country  inns,  bunches  of  flowers  symmetrically  arranged  on  a 
buff-colored  background  ;  he  looked  at  the  rough  stone  chim- 
ney-piece full  of  rifts  and  cracks  (the  mere  sight  of  it  sent  a 
chill  through  him,  in  spite  of  the  fire  in  the  grate),  at  the 
ramshackle  cane-seat  chairs,  at  the  open  night-table  large 
enough  to  hold  a  fair-sized  sergeant-at-arms,  at  the  strip  of 
worn  rag-carpet  beside  the  canopied  bedstead,  at  the  curtains 
which  shook  every  moment  as  if  the  whole  worm-eaten 
structure  would  fall  to  pieces ;  finally,  he  turned  his  atten- 
tion to  big  Nanon,  and  said  earnestly — 

"  Look  here,  my  good  girl,  am  I  really  in  M.  Grandet's 
house  ?  M.  Grandet,  formerly  mayor  of  Saumur,  and  brother 
of  M.  Grandet  of  Paris?" 

"  Yes,  sir,  you  are ;  and  you  are  staying  with  a  very  kind, 
a  very  amiable  and  excellent  gentleman.  Am  I  to  help  you 
to  unpack  those  trunks  of  yours?  " 

"  Faith,  yes,  old  soldier,  I  wish  you  would.  Did  you  serve 
in  the  horse  marines  ?  " 

"Oh!  oh!  oh!"  chuckled  Nanon.  "What  may  they 
be?  What  are  the  horse  marines?  Are  they  old  salts?  Do 
they  go  to  sea?" 

"  Here,  look_out  my  dressing-gown  ;  it  is  in  that  portman- 
teau, and  this  is  the  key." 

Nanon  was  overcome  with  astonishment  at  the  sight  of  a 
green  silk  dressing-gown,  embroidered  with  gold  flowers  after 
an  antique  pattern. 

"  Are  you  going  to  sleep  in  that  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"Yes." 


62  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

**  Holy  Virgin  !  What  a  beautiful  altar  cloth  it  would 
make  for  the  parish  church  !  Oh,  my  dear  young  gentleman, 
you  should  give  it  to  the  church,  and  you  will  save  your  soul, 
which  you  are  like  to  lose  for  that  thing.  Oh  !  how  nice  you 
look  in  it.     I  will  go  and  call  mademoiselle  to  look  at  you." 

"  Come  now,  Nanon,  since  that  is  your  name,  will  you 
hold  your  tongue,  and  let  me  go  to  bed.  I  will  set  my  things 
straight  to-morrow,  and  as  you  have  taken  such  a  fancy  to  my 
gown,  you  shall  have  a  chance  to  save  your  soul.  I  am  too 
good  a  Christian  to  take  it  away  with  me  when  I  go  ;  you  shall 
have  it,  and  you  can  do  whatever  you  like  with  it." 

Nanon  stood  stockstill,  staring  at  Charles  ;  she  could  not 
bring  herself  to  believe  that  he  really  meant  what  he  said. 

"You  are  going  to  give  that  grand  dressing-gown  to  me  /" 
she  said,  as  she  turned  to  go.  "The  gentleman  is  dreaming 
already.     Good-night." 

"Good-night,  Nanon.  What  anyhow  am  I  doing  here?" 
said  Charles  to  himself,  as  he  dropped  off  to  sleep.  "  My 
father  is  no  fool ;  I  have  not  been  sent  here  for  nothing. 
Pooh!  'Serious  business  to-morrow/  as  some  old  Greek 
wiseacre  used  to  say." 

"  Sainte  Vierge  /  how  nice  he  is  !  "  said  Eugenie  to  her- 
self in  the  middle  of  her  prayers,  and  that  night  they  re- 
mained unfinished. 

Mme.  Grandet  alone  lay  down  to  rest,  with  no  thought  in 
her  quiet  mind.  Through  the  door  in  the  thin  partition  she 
could  hear  her  husband  pacing  to  and  fro  in  his  room.  Like 
all  sensitive  and  timid  women,  she  had  thoroughly  studied  the 
character  of  her  lord  and  master.  Just  as  the  sea-mew  fore- 
sees the  coming  storm,  she  knew  by  almost  imperceptible 
signs  that  a  tempest  was  raging  in  Grandet's  mind,  and,  to 
use  her  own  expression,  she  "  lay  like  one  dead  "  at  such 
seasons.  Grandet's  eyes  turned  towards  his  sanctum ;  he 
looked  at  the  door,  which  was  lined  with  sheet  iron  on  the 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  63 

inner  side  (he  himself  had  seen  to  that),  and  muttered,  "  What 
a  preposterous  notion  this  is  of  my  brother's,  to  leave  his 
child  to  me  !  A  pretty  legacy  !  I  haven't  twenty  crowns  to 
spare,  and  what  would  twenty  crowns  be  to  a  popinjay  like 
that,  who  looked  at  my  weather-glass  as  if  it  wasn't  fit  to  light 
the  fire  with?" 

And  Grandet,  meditating  on  the  probable  outcome  of  this 
mournful  dying  request,  was  perhaps  more  perturbed  in  spirit 
than  the  brother  who  had  made  it. 

"  Shall  I  really  have  that  golden  gown  ?  "  Nanon  said, 
and  she  fell  asleep  wrapped  round  in  her  altar  cloth,  dream- 
ing for  the  first  time  in  her  life  of  shining  embroideries  and 
flowered  brocade,  just  as  Eugenie  dreamed  of  love. 

In  a  girl's  innocent  and  uneventful  life  there  comes  a 
mysterious  hour  of  joy  when  the  sunlight  spreads  through  the 
soul,  and  it  seems  to  her  that  the  flowers  express  the  thoughts 
that  rise  within  her,  thoughts  that  are  quickened  by  every 
heart-beat,  only  to  blend  in  a  vague  feeling  of  longing,  when 
the  days  are  filled  with  innocent  melancholy  and  delicious 
happiness.  Children  smile  when  they  see  the  light  for  the 
first  time,  and  when  a  girl  dimly  divines  the  presence  of  love 
in  the  world  she  smiles  as  she  smiled  in  her  babyhood.  If 
light  is  the  first  thing  that  we  learn  to  love,  is  not  love  like 
light  in  the  heart  ?  This  moment  had  come  for  Eugenie;  she 
saw  the  things  of  life  clearly  for  the  first  time. 

Early  rising  is  the  rule  in  the  country,  so,  like  most  other 
girls,  Eugenie  was  up  betimes  in  the  morning ;  this  morning 
she  rose  earlier  than  usual,  said  her  prayers,  and  began  to 
dress  ;  her  toilet  was  henceforth  to  possess  an  interest  unknown 
before.  She  began  by  brushing  her  chestnut  hair,  and  wound 
the  heavy  plaits  about  her  head,  careful  that  no  loose  ends 
should  escape  from  the  braided  coronet  which  made  an  appro- 
priate setting  for  a  face  both  frank  and  shy,  a  simple  coiffure 
which  harmonized  with  the  girlish  outlines. 

As  she  washed  her  hands  again  and  again  in  the  cold  spring 


64  EUG&NIE    GRANDET, 

water  that  roughened  and  reddened  the  skin,  she  looked  down 
at  her  pretty  rounded  arms  and  wondered  what  her  cousin  did 
to  have  hands  so  soft  and  so  white,  and  nails  so  shapely.  She 
put  on  a  pair  of  new  stockings,  and  her  best  shoes,  and  laced 
herself  carefully,  without  passing  over  a  single  eyelet-hole. 
For  the  first  time  in  her  life,  in  fact,  she  wished  to  look  her 
best,  and  felt  that  it  was  pleasant  to  have  a  pretty  new  dress  to 
wear,  a  becoming  dress  which  was  nicely  made. 

The  church  clock  struck  just  as  she  had  finished  dressing ; 
she  counted  the  strokes,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that  it  was 
still  only  seven  o'clock.  She  had  been  so  anxious  to  have 
plenty  of  time  for  her  toilet  that  she  had  risen  too  early,  and 
now  there  was  nothing  left  to  do.  Eugenie,  in  her  ignorance, 
never  thought  of  studying  the  position  of  a  tress  of  hair,  and 
of  altering  it  a  dozen  times  to  criticise  its  effect ;  she  simply 
folded  her  arms,  sat  down  by  the  window,  and  looked  out 
upon  the  yard,  the  long  strip  of  garden,  and  the  terraced 
gardens  up  above  upon  the  ramparts. 

It  was  a  somewhat  dreary  outlook  thus  shut  in  by  the  grim 
rock  walls,  but  not  without  a  charm  of  its  own,  the  mysterious 
beauty  of  quiet  overshaded  gardens,  or  of  wild  and  solitary 
places.  Under  the  kitchen  window  there  was  a  well  with  a 
stone  coping  round  it ;  a  pulley  was  suspended  above  the  water 
from  an  iron  bracket  overgrown  by  a  vine ;  the  vine  leaves 
were  red  and  faded  now  that  the  autumn  was  nearly  at  an  end, 
and  the  crooked  stem  was  plainly  visible  as  it  wound  its  way 
to  the  house  wall,  and  crept  along  the  house  till  it  came  to  an 
end  by  the  wood-stack,  where  the  faggots  were  arranged  with 
as  much  neatness  and  precision  as  the  volumes  on  some  book- 
lover's  shelves.  The  flagstones  in  the  yard  were  dark  with 
age  and  mosses,  and  dank  with  the  stagnant  air  of  the  place; 
weeds  grew  here  and  there  among  the  chinks.  The  massive 
outworks  of  the  old  fortifications  were  green  with  moss,  with 
here  and  there  a  long  dark  brown  streak  where  the  water 
dripped,  and  the  eight  tumble-down  steps,  which  gave  access 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  65 

to  the  garden  at  the  farther  end  of  the  yard,  were  almost 
hidden  by  a  tall  growth  of  plants;  the  general  effect  of  the 
crumbling  stones  had  a  vague  resemblance  to  some  crusader's 
tomb  erected  by  his  widow  in  the  days  of  yore  and  long  since 
fallen  into  ruin. 

Along  the  low  mouldering  stone-wall  there  was  a  fence  of 
open  lattice-work,  rotten  with  age,  and  fast  falling  to  pieces ; 
overrun  by  various  creeping  plants  that  clambered  over  it  at 
their  own  sweet  will.  A  couple  of  stunted  apple  trees  spread 
out  their  gnarled  and  twisted  branches  on  either  side  of  the 
wicket  gate  that  led  into  the  garden — three  straight  gravel 
walks  with  strips  of  border  in  between,  and  a  line  of  box- 
edging  on  either  side ;  and  at  the  farther  end,  underneath 
the  ramparts,  a  sort  of  arbor  of  lime  trees,  and  a  row  of  rasp- 
berry canes.  A  huge  walnut  tree  grew  at  the  end  nearest  to 
the  house,  and  almost  overshadowed  the  cooper's  strong  room 
with  its  spreading  branches. 

It  was  one  of  those  soft  bright  autumn  mornings  peculiar 
to  the  districts  along  the  Loire  ;  there  was  not  a  trace  of 
mist ;  the  light  frosty  rime  of  the  previous  night  was  rapidly 
disappearing  as  the  mild  rays  of  the  autumn  sun  shone  on  the 
picturesque  surroundings,  the  old  walls,  the  green  tangled 
growth  in  the  yard  and  garden. 

All  these  things  had  been  long  familiar  to  Eugenie^s  eyes, 
but  to-day  it  seemed  to  her  that  there  was  a  new  beauty  about 
them.  A  throng  of  confused  thoughts  filled  her  mind  as  the 
sunbeams  overflowed  the  world  without.  A  vague,  inexplic- 
able new  happiness  stirred  within  her,  and  enveloped  her  soul, 
as  a  bright  cloud  might  cling  about  some  object  in  the  mate- 
rial world.  The  quaint  garden,  the  old  walls,  every  detail  in 
her  little  world  seemed  to  be  living  through  this  new  experi- 
ence with  her;  the  nature  without  her  was  in  harmony  with 
her  inmost  thoughts.  The  sunlight  crept  along  the  wall  till 
it  reached  a  maiden-hair  fern  ;  the  changing  hues  of  a  pigeon's 
breast  shone  from  the  thick  fronds  and  glossy  stems,  and  all 
5 


66  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

Eugenie's  future  grew  bright  with  radiant  hopes.  Hence- 
forward the  bit  of  wall,  its  pale  flowers,  its  blue  harebells  and 
bleached  grasses,  was  a  pleasant  sight  for  her ;  it  called  up 
associations  which  had  all  the  charm  of  the  memories  of 
childhood. 

The  rustling  sound  made  by  the  leaves  as  they  fell  to  the 
earth,  the  echoes  that  came  up  from  the  court,  seemed  like 
answers  to  the  girl's  secret  questionings  as  she  sat  and  mused  ; 
she  might  have  stayed  there  by  the  window  all  day  and  never 
have  noticed  how  the  hours  went  by,  but  other  thoughts 
surged  up  within  her  soul.  Again  and  again  she  rose  and 
stood  before  the  glass,  and  looked  at  herself,  as  a  conscien- 
tious writer  scrutinizes  his  work,  criticises  it,  and  says  hard 
things  about  it  to  himself. 

"  I  am  not  pretty  enough  for  him  !  " 

This  was  what  Eugenie  thought,  in  her  humility,  and  the 
thought  was  fertile  in  suffering.  The  poor  child  did  not  do 
herself  justice ;  but  humility,  or,  more  truly,  fear,  is  born  with 
love.  Eugenie's  beauty  was  of  a  robust  type  often  found 
among  the  lower  middle  classes,  a  type  which  may  seem 
somewhat  wanting  in  refinement,  but  in  her  the  beauty  of  the 
Venus  of  Milo  was  ennobled  and  purified  by  the  beauty  of 
Christian  sentiment,  which  invests  woman  with  a  dignity 
unknown  to  ancient  sculptors.  Her  head  was  very  large  ;  the 
masculine  but  delicate  outlines  of  her  forehead  recalled  the 
Jupiter  of  Phidias;  all  the  radiance  of  her  pure  life  seemed 
to  shine  from  the  clear  gray  eyes.  An  attack  of  smallpox,  so 
mild  that  it  had  left  no  scars  on  the  oval  face  or  features,  had 
yet  somewhat  blurred  their  fresh  fair  coloring,  and  coarsened 
the  smooth  and  delicate  surface,  still  so  fine  and  soft  that  her 
mother's  gentle  kiss  left  a  passing  trace  of  faint  red  on  her 
cheek.  Perhaps  her  nose  was  a  little  too  large,  but  it  did  not 
contradict  the  kindly  and  affectionate  expression  of  the  mouth, 
and  the  red  lips  covered  with  finely-etched  lines.  Her  throat 
was  daintily  rounded.     There  was  something  that   attracted 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  67 

attention  and  stirred  the  imagination  in  the  curving  lines  of 
her  figure,  covered  to  the  throat  by  her  high-necked  dress;  no 
doubt  she  possessed  little  of  the  grace  that  is  due  to  the 
toilet,  and  her  tall  frame  was  strong  rather  than  lissome,  but 
this  was  not  without  its  charm  for  judges  of  beauty. 

For  Eugenie  was  both  tall  and  strongly  built.  She  had 
nothing  of  the  prettiness  that  ordinary  people  admire ;  but 
her  beauty  was  unmistakable,  and  of  a  kind  in  which  artists 
alone  delight.  A  painter  in  quest  of  an  exalted  and  spiritual 
type,  searching  women's  faces  for  the  beauty  which  Raphael 
dreamed  of  and  conjured  into  being,  the  eyes  full  of  proud 
humility,  the  pure  outlines,  often  due  to  some  chance  inspir- 
ation of  the  artist,  but  which  a  virtuous  and  Christian  life  can 
alone  acquire  or  preserve — a  painter  haunted  by  this  ideal 
would  have  seen  at  once  in  Eugenie  Grandet's  face  her  uncon- 
scious and  innate  nobility  of  soul,  a  world  of  love  behind  the 
quiet  brow,  and  in  the  way  she  had  with  her  eyelids  and  in  her 
eyes  that  divine  something  which  baffles  description.  There 
was  a  serene  tranquillity  about  her  features,  unspoiled  and 
unwearied  by  the  expression  of  pleasure  ;  it  was  as  if  you 
watched,  across  some  placid  lake,  the  shadowy  outlines  of 
hills  far  off  against  the  sky.  The  beauty  of  Eugenie's  face, 
so  quiet  and  so  softly  colored,  was  like  that  of  some  fair,  half- 
opened  flower  about  which  the  light  seems  to  hover  ;  in  its 
quality  of  restfulness,  its  subtle  revelation  of  a  beautiful  nature, 
lay  the  charm  that  attracted  beholders.  Eugenie  was  still  on 
the  daisied  brink  of  life,  where  illusions  blossom  and  joys  are 
gathered  which  are  not  known  in  later  days.  So  she  looked 
in  the  glass,  and  with  no  thought  of  love  as  yet  in  her 
mind,  she  said,  "  He  will  not  give  me  a  thought;  I  am  too 
ugly!" 

Then  she  opened  her  door,  went  out  on  to  the  landing,  and 
bent  over  the  staircase  to  hear  the  sounds  in  the  house. 

"  He  is  not  getting  up  yet,"  she  thought.  She  heard  Nanon's 
morning  cough  as  the  good  woman  went  to  and  fro,  swept  out 


68  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

the  dining-room,  lit  the  kitchen  fire,  chained  up  the  dog,  and 
talked  to  her  friends  the  brutes  in  the  stable. 

Eugenie  fled  down  the  staircase,  and  ran  over  to  Nanon, 
who  was  milking  the  cow. 

"Nanon,"  she  cried,  "do  let  us  have  some  cream  for  my 
cousin's  coffee,  there's  a  dear." 

"But,  mademoiselle,  you  can't  have  cream  off  this  morn- 
ing's milk,"  said  Nanon,  as  she  burst  out  laughing.  "  I  can't 
make  cream  for  you.  Your  cousin  is  as  charming  as  charming 
can  be,  that  he  is!  You  haven't  seen  him  in  that  silk  night 
rail  of  his,  all  flowers  and  gold  !  I  did  though  !  The  linen 
he  wears  is  every  bit  as  fine  as  M.  le  Cure's  surplice." 

"  Nanon,  make  some  cake  for  us." 

"And  who  is  to  find  the  wood  to  heat  the  oven  and  the 
flour  and  the  butter?  "  asked  Nanon,  who  in  her  capacity  of 
Grandet's  prime  minister  was  a  person  of  immense  importance 
in  Eugenie's  eyes,  and  even  in  Eugenie's  mother's.  "  Is  he 
to  be  robbed  to  make  a  feast  for  your  cousin?  Ask  for  the 
butter  and  the  flour  and  the  firewood  ;  he  is  your  father,  go 
and  ask  him,  he  may  give  them  to  you.  There  !  there  he  is, 
just  coming  downstairs  to  see  after  the  provisions " 

But  Eugenie  had  escaped  into  the  garden  ;  the  sound  of  her 
father's  footstep  on  the  creaking  staircase  terrified  her.  She 
was  conscious  of  a  happiness  that  shrank  from  the  observation 
of  others,  a  happiness  which,  as  we  are  apt  to  think,  and  per- 
haps not  without  reason,  shines  from  our  eyes,  and  is  written 
at  large  upon  our  foreheads.  And  not  only  so,  she  was  con- 
scious of  other  thoughts.  The  bleak  discomfort  of  her  father's 
house  had  struck  her  for  the  first  time,  and,  with  a  dim  feeling 
of  vexation,  the  poor  child  wished  that  she  could  alter  it  all, 
and  bring  it  more  into  harmony  with  her  cousin's  elegance. 
She  felt  a  passionate  longing  to  do  something  for  him,  without 
the  slightest  idea  what  that  something  should  be.  The  wo- 
manly instinct  awakened  in  her  at  the  first  sight  of  her  cousin 
was  only  the  stronger  because  she  had  reached  her  three-and- 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  69 

twentieth  year,  and  mind  and  heart  were  fully  developed  ;  and 
she  was  so  natural  and  simple  that  she  acted  on  the  prompt- 
ings of  her  angelic  nature  without  submitting  herself,  her  im- 
pressions, or  her  feelings  to  any  introspective  process. 

For  the  first  time  in  her  life  the  sight  of  her  father  struck  a 
sort  of  terror  into  her  heart ;  she  felt  that  he  was  the  master 
of  her  fate,  and  that  she  was  guiltily  hiding  some  of  her  thoughts 
from  him.  She  began  to  walk  hurriedly  up  and  down,  won- 
dering how  it  was  that  the  air  was  so  fresh ;  there  was  a  reviv- 
ing force  in  the  sunlight,  it  seemed  to  be  within  her  as  well 
as  without,  it  was  as  if  a  new  life  had  begun. 

While  she  was  still  thinking  how  to  gain  her  end  concern- 
ing the  cake,  a  quarrel  came  to  pass  between  Nanon  and 
Grandet,  a  thing  as  rare  as  a  winter  swallow.  The  good  man 
had  just  taken  his  keys,  and  was  about  to  dole  out  the  provi- 
sions required  for  the  day. 

"  Is  there  any  bread  left  over  from  yesterday  !"  he  asked 
of  Nanon. 

"  Not  a  crumb,  sir." 

Grandet  took  up  a  large  loaf,  round  in  form  and  close  in 
consistence,  shaped  in  one  of  the  flat  baskets  which  they  use 
for  baking  in  Anjou,  and  was  about  to  cut  it,  when  Nanon 
broke  in  upon  him  with — 

"  There  are  five_of  us  to-day,  sir." 

"True,"  answered  Grandet;  "but  these  loaves^of  yours 
weigh  six  pounds  apiece  ;  there  will  be  some  left  over.  Be- 
sides, these  young  fellows  from  Paris  never  touch  bread,  as 
you  will  soon  see." 

"  Then  do  they  eat  kitchen  ?  "   asked  Nanon. 

This  word  kitchen  in  the  Angevin  dictionary  signifies  any- 
thing which  is  spread  upon  bread  ;  from  butter,  the  commonest 
variety,  to  preserved  peaches,  the  most  distinguished  of  all 
kitche?is ;  and  those  who,  as  small  children,  have  nibbled  off 
the  kitchen  and  left  the  bread,  will  readily  understand  the 
bearing  of  Nanon's  remark. 


70  EUGENIE   GRANDET. 

"No,"  replied  Grandet,  with  much  gravity,  "they  eat 
neither  bread  nor  kitchen  ;  they  are  like  a  girl  in  love,  as  you 
may  say." 

Having  at  length  cut  down  the  day's  rations  to  the  lowest 
possible  point,  the  miser  was  about  to  go  to  his  fruit-loft,  first 
carefully  locking  up  the  cupboards  of  his  storeroom,  when 
Nan  on  stopped  him. 

"Just  give  me  some  flour  and  butter,  sir,"  she  said,  "  and 
I  will  make  a  cake  for  the  children." 

"  Are  you  going  to  turn  the  house  upside  down  because  my 
nephew  is  here  ?  " 

"  Your  nephew  was  no  more  in  my  mind  than  your  dog,  no 

more  than  he  was  in  yours There  now !   you  have  only 

put  out  six  lumps  of  sugar,  and  I  want  eight." 

"  Come,  come,  Nanon  ;  I  have  never  seen  you  like  this 
before.  What  has  come  over  you?  Are  you  mistress  here  ? 
You  will  have  six  lumps  of  sugar  and  no  more." 

"  Oh,  very  well;  and  what  is  your  nephew  to  sweeten  his 
coffee  with  ?  ' ' 

"  He  can  have  two  lumps;  I  shall  go  without  it  myself." 

"  You  go  without  sugar  !  and  at  your  age  !  I  would  sooner 
pay  for  it  out  of  my  own  pocket." 

"  Mind  your  own  business." 

In  spite  of  the  low  price  of  sugar,  it  was,  in  Grandet's 
eyes,  the  most  precious  of  all  colonial  products.  For  him  it 
was  always  something  to  be  used  sparingly ;  it  was  still  worth 
six  francs  a  pound,  as  in  the  time  of  the  Empire,  and  this  pet 
economy  had  become  an  inveterate  habit  with  him.  But 
every  woman,  no  matter  how  simple  she  may  be,  can  devise 
some  shift  to  gain  her  ends ;  and  Nanon  allowed  the  question 
of  the  sugar  to  drop,  in  order  to  have  her  way  about  the 
cake. 

"  Mademoiselle,"  she  called  through  the  window,  "wouldn't 
you  like  some  cake  ?  " 

"  No,  no,"  answered  Eugenie. 


EUGENIE GRAND  ET.  71 

"Stay,  Nanon,"  said  Grandet  as  he  heard  his  daughter's 
voice  ;   "  there  !  " 

He  opened  the  flour-bin,  measured  out  some  flour,  and 
added  a  few  ounces  of  butter  to  the  piece  which  he  had 
already  cut. 

"  And  firewood  ;  I  shall  want  firewood  to  heat  the  oven," 
said  the  inexorable  Nanon. 

"Ah!  well,  you  can  take  what  you  want,"  he  answered 
ruefully ;  but  you  will  make  a  fruit  tart  at  the  same  time,  and 
you  must  bake  the  dinner  in  the  oven,  that  will  save  lighting 
another  fire." 

"Why!"  cried  Nanon;  "there  is  no  need  to  tell  me 
that!  " 

Grandet  gave  his  trusty  prime  minister  a  glance  that  was 
almost  paternal. 

"Mademoiselle,"  cried  Nanon,  "we  are  going  to  have  a 
cake." 

Grandet  came  back  again  with  the  fruit,  and  began  by 
setting  down  a  plateful  on  the  kitchen  table. 

"Just  look  here,  sir,"  said  Nanon,  "what  lovely  boots 
your  nephew  has  !  What  leather,  how  nice  it  smells  !  What 
are  they  to  be  "cleaned  with  ?  Am  I  to  put  your  egg  blacking 
on  them  ?  "  _ 

"No,  Nanon,"  said  Eugenie;  "I  expect  the  egg  would 
spoil  the  leather.     You  had  better  tell  him  that  you  have  no 

idea  how  to  clean  black  morocco Yes,  it  is  morocco, 

and  he  himself  will  buy  you  something  in  Saumur  to  clean  his 
boots  with.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  they  put  sugar  into 
their  blacking,  and  that  is  what  makes  it  so  shiny." 

"Then  is  it  good  to  eat?"  asked  Nanon,  as  she  picked 
up  the  boots  and  smelt  them.  "Why,  why!  they  smell  of 
madame's  eau-de-Cologne  !     Oh,  how  funny !  " 

"Funny/"  said  her  master ;  "people  spend  more  money 
on  their  boots  than  they  are  worth  that  stand  in  them,  and 
you  think  it  funny  !  "     He  had  just  returned  from  a  second 


72  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

and  final  expedition  to  the  fruit-loft,  carefully  locking  the 
door  after  him. 

' 'You  will  have  soup  once  or  twice  a  week  while  your 
nephew  is  here,  sir,  will  you  not?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Shall  I  go  round  to  the  butcher's?" 

"You  will  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  You  can  make  some 
chicken-broth;  the  tenants  will  keep  you  going.  But  I  shall 
tell  Cornoiller  to  kill  some  ravens  for  me.  That  kind  of 
game  makes  the  best  broth  in  the  world." 

"Is  it  true,  sir,  that  they  live  on  dead  things  ?  " 

"  You  are  a  fool,  Nanon  !  They  live,  like  everybody  else, 
on  anything  that  they  can  pick  up.  Don't  we  all  live  on 
dead  things?  What  about  legacies?"  And  the  good  man 
Grandet,  having  no  further  order  to  give,  drew  out  his  watch, 
and  finding  that  there  was  yet  half  an  hour  to  spare  before 
breakfast,  took  up  his  hat,  gave  his  daughter  a  kiss,  and  said, 
"Would  you  like  to  take  a  walk  along  the  Loire?  I  have 
something  to  see  after  in  the  meadows  down  there." 

Eugenie  put  on  her  straw  hat  lined  with  rose-colored  silk; 
and  then  father  and  daughter  went  down  the  crooked  street 
towards  the  market-place. 

"Where  are  you  off  to  so  early  this  morning?"  said  the 
notary  Cruchot,  as  he  met  the  Grandets. 

"  We  are  going  to  take  a  look  at  something,"  responded 
his  friend,  in  nowise  deceived  by  this  early  move  on  the 
notary's  part. 

Whenever  Grandet  was  about  to  "take  a  look  at  some- 
thing," the  notary  knew  by  experience  that  there  was  some- 
thing to  be  gained  by  going  with  him.  With  him,  therefore, 
he  went. 

"  Come  along,  Cruchot,"  said  Grandet,  addressing  the 
notary.  "You  are  one  of  my  friends;  I  am  going  to  show 
you  what  a  piece  of  folly  it  is  to  plant  poplars  in  good 
soil " 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  73 

"  Then  the  sixty  thousand  francs  that  you  fingered  for  those 
poplars  of  yours  in  the- meadows  by  the  Loire  are  a  mere  trifle 
to  you?"  said  Cruchot,  opening  his  eyes  wide  in  his  be- 
wilderment.     "  And  such  luck  as  you  had  too  ! Felling 

your  timber  just  when  there  was  no  white  wood  to  be  had  in 
Nantes,  so  that  every  trunk  fetched  thirty  francs  !" 

Eugenie  heard  and  did  not  hear,  utterly  unconscious  that 
the  most  critical  moment  of  her  life  was  rapidly  approaching, 
that  a  paternal  and  sovereign  decree  was  about  to  be  pro- 
nounced, and  that  the  old  notary  was  to  bring  all  this  about. 
Grandet  had  reached  the  magnificent  meadow-land  by  the 
Loire,  which  had  come  into  his  hands  in  his  Republican  days. 
Some  thirty  laborers  were  busy  digging  out  the  roots  of  the 
poplars  that  once  stood  there,  filling  up  the  holes  that  were 
left,  and  leveling  the  ground. 

"  Now,  M.  Cruchot,  see  how  much  space  a  poplar  takes  up," 
said  he,  addressing  the  notary.  "  Jean,"  he  called  to  a  work- 
man, "m — m — measure  r — round  the  sides  with  your  rule." 

"  Eight  feet  four  times  over,"  said  the  workman  when  he 
had  finished. 

"Thirty-two  feet  of  loss,"  said  Grandet  to  Cruchot. 
"  Now  along  that  line  there  were  three  hundred  poplars, 
weren't  there?  Well,  then,  three  hundred  t — t — times  thirty- 
two  f — feet  will  eat  up  five  hundredweight  of  hay,  allow 
twice  as  much  again  for  the  space  on  either  side,  and  you  get 
fifteen  hundredweight ;  then  there  is  the  intervening  space — 
say  a  thousand  t — t — trusses  of  hay  altogether." 

"Well,"  said  Cruchot,  helping  his  friend  out,  "and  a 
thousand  trusses  of  that  hay  would  fetch  something  like  six 
hundred  francs." 

"S — s — say  t — twelve  hundred,  because  the  s — second 
crop  is  worth  three  or  four  hundred  francs.  Good,  then 
reckon  up  what  t — t — twelve  hundred  francs  per  annum  d — 
d — during  f — forty  years  comes  to,  at  compound  interest,  of 
course." 


74  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

"  Sixty  thousand  francs,  or  thereabouts,"  said  the  notary. 

"That  is  what  I  make  it!  Sixty  thousand  f — f — francs. 
Well,"  the  vine-grower  went  on  without  stammering,  "two 
thousand  poplars  will  not  bring  in  fifty  thousand  francs  in 
forty  years.  So  you  lose  on  them.  That  /found  out,"  said 
Grandet,  who  was  vastly  pleased  with  himself.  "Jean,"  he 
continued,  turning  to  the  laborer,  "fill  up  all  the  holes  ex- 
cept those  along  the  riverside,  where  you  can  plant  those 
poplar  saplings  that  I  bought.  If  you  set  them  along  by  the 
Loire,  they  will  grow  there  finely  at  the  expense  of  the 
government,"  he  added,  and  as  he  looked  round  at  Cruchot 
the  wen  on  his  nose  twitched  slightly,  the  most  sardonic 
smile  could  not  have  said  more. 

"  Yes,  it  is  clear  enough,  poplars  should  only  be  planted  in 
poor  soil,"  said  Cruchot,  quite  overcome  with  amazement  at 
Grandet's  astuteness. 

"  Y — e — s,  sir,"  said  the  cooper  ironically. 

Eugenie  was  looking  out  over  the  glorious  landscape  and 
along  the  Loire,  without  heeding  her  father's  arithmetic;  but 
Cruchot's  talk  with  his  client  took  another  turn,  and  her 
attention  was  suddenly  aroused. 

"  So  you  have  a  son-in-law  come  from  Paris  ;  they  are  talk- 
ing about  nothing  but  your  nephew  in  all  Saumur.  I  shall 
soon  have  settlements  to  draw  up  ;  eh,  pere  Grandet?  " 

f  Did  you  come  out  early  to  t — t — tell  me  that?"  inquired 
Grandet,  and  again  the  wen  twitched.  "Very  well,  you  are 
an  old  crony  of  mine ;  I  will  be  p — plain  with  you,  and  t — 
t — tell  you  what  you  w — want  to  know.  I  would  rather  fling 
my  d — d — daughter  into  the  Loire,  look  you,  than  g — give 
her  to  her  cousin.  You  can  give  that  out.  But,  no  ;  1 — 1 — 
let  people  gossip." 

Everything  swam  before  Eugenie's  eyes.  Her  vague  hopes 
of  distant  happiness  had  suddenly  taken  definite  shape,  had 
sprung  up  and  blossomed,  and  then  her  harvest  of  flowers  had 
been   as  suddenly  cut  down   and   lay  on  the   earth.     Since 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  75 

yesterday  she  had  woven  the  bonds  of  happiness  that  unite 
two  souls,  and  henceforward  sorrow,  it  seemed,  was  to 
strengthen  them.  Is  it  not  written  in  the  noble  destiny  of 
woman  that  the  grandeur  of  sorrow  should  touch  her  more 
closely  than  all  the  pomp  and  splendor  of  fortune  ? 

How  came  it  that  a  father's  feelings  had  been  extinguished 
(as  it  seemed)  in  her  father's  heart?  What  crime  could  be 
laid  at  Charles'  door  ?  Mysterious  questions  !  Mysterious 
and  sad  forebodings  already  surrounded  her  growing  love, 
that  mystery  within  her  soul.  When  they  turned  to  go  home 
again,  she  trembled  in  every  limb ;  and  as  they  went  up  the 
shady  street,  along  which  she  had  lately  gone  so  joyously, 
the  shadows  looked  gloomy,  the  air  she  breathed  seemed  full 
of  the  melancholy  of  autumn,  everything  about  her  was  sad. 
Love,  that  had  brought  these  keener  perceptions,  was  quick  to 
interpret  every  boding  sign.  As  they  neared  home,  she 
walked  on  ahead  of  her  father,  knocked  at  the  house-door, 
and  stood  waiting  beside  it.  But  Grandet,  seeing  that  the 
notary  carried  a  newspaper  still  in  its  wrapper,  asked,  "jHow 
are  consols?  " 

"I  know  you  will  not  take  my  advice,  Grandet,"  Cruchot 
replied.  "You  should  buy  at  once;  the  chance  of  making 
twenty  per  cent,  on  Them  in  two  years  is  still  open  to  you, 
and  they  pay  a  very  fair  rate  of  interest  besides,  five  thousand 
livres  is  not  a  bad  return  on  eighty  thousand  francs.  You 
can  buy  now  at  eighty  francs  fifty  centimes." 

"  We  shall  see,"  remarked  Grandet  pensively,  rubbing  his 
chin. 

"  Mon  Dieu!"  exclaimed  the  notary,  who  by  this  time 
had  unfolded  his  newspaper. 

"Well,  what  is  it?"  cried  Grandet  as  Cruchot  put  the 
paper  in  his  hands  and  said — 

"  Read  that  paragraph." 

"  M.  Grandet,  one  of  the  most  highly-respected  merchants 


76  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

in  Paris,  shot  himself  through  the  head  yesterday  afternoon, 
after  putting  in  an  appearance  on  'Change  as  usual.  He  had 
previously  sent  in  his  resignation  to  the  President  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  resigning  his  position  as  Judge  of  the 
Tribunal  of  Commerce  at  the  same  time.  His  affairs  had 
become  involved  through  the  failures  of  his  stockbroker  and 
notary,  MM.  Roguin  and  Souchet.  M.  Grandet,  whose  char- 
acter was  greatly  esteemed,  and  whose  credit  stood  high, 
would  no  doubt  have  found  temporary  assistance  on  the 
market  which  would  have  enabled  him  to  tide  over  his  diffi- 
culties. It  is  to  be  regretted  that  a  man  of  such  high  char- 
acter should  have  given  way  to  the  first  impulse  of  despair" 
— and  so  forth,  and  so  forth. 

" 1  knew  it,"  the  old  vine-grower  said. 

Phlegmatic  though  Cruchot  was,  he  felt  a  horrible  shudder 
run  through  him  at  the  words  ;  perhaps  Grandet  of  Paris  had 
stretched  imploring  hands  in  vain  to  the  millions  of  Grandet 
of  Saumur ;  the  blood  ran  cold  in  his  veins. 

"And  his  son?"  he  asked  presently,  "he  was  in  such 
spirits  yesterday  evening." 

"His  son  knows  nothing  as  yet,"  Grandet  answered,  im- 
perturbable as  ever. 

"Good-morning,  M.  Grandet,"  said  Cruchot.  He  under- 
stood the  position  now,  and  went  to  reassure  the  President  de 
Bonfons. 

Grandet  found  breakfast  ready.  Mme.  Grandet  was  already 
seated  in  her  chair,  mounted  on  the  wooden  blocks,  and  was 
knitting  woolen  cuffs  for  the  winter.  Eugenie  ran  to  her 
mother  and  put  her  arms  about  her,  with  the  eager  hunger  for 
affection  that  comes  of  a  hidden  trouble. 

"You  can  get  your  breakfast,"  said  Nanon,  bustling  down- 
stairs in  a  hurry;  "he  is  sleeping  like  a  cherub.  He  looks 
so  nice  with  his  eyes  shut  !  I  went  in  and  called  him,  but  it 
was  all  one,  he  never  heard  me." 


EUG&NIE    GRANDET.  77 


"Let  him  sleep,"  said  Grandet ;  "he  will  wake  soon 
enough  to  hear  bad  news,  in  any  case." 

"What  is  the  matter?"  asked  Eugenie.  She  was  putting 
into  her  cup  the  two  smallest  lumps  of  sugar,  weighing  good- 
ness knows  how  many  grains;  her  worthy  parent  was  wont  to 
amuse  himself  by  cutting  up  sugar  whenever  he  had  nothing 
better  to  do. 

Mme.  Grandet,  who  had  not  dared  to  put  the  question  her- 
self, looked  at  her  husband. 

"His  father  has  blown  his  brains  out." 

"  My  uncle  f"  said  Eugenie. 

"  Oh  !  that  poor  boy  !  "  cried  Mme.  Grandet. 

"  Poor  indeed  !  "  said  Grandet ;   "he  has  not  a  penny." 

"  Ah  !  well,  he  is  sleeping  as  if  he  were  the  king  of  all  the 
world,"  said  Nanon  pityingly. 

Eugenie  could  not  eat.  Her  heart  was  wrung  as  a  woman's 
heart  can  be  when  for  the  first  time  her  whole  soul  is  filled 
with  sorrow  and  compassion  for  the  sorrow  of  one  she  loves. 
She  burst  into  tears. 

"You  did  not  know  your  uncle,  so  what  is  there  to  cry 
about?"  said  her  father  with  a  glance  like  a  hungry  tiger; 
just  such  a  glance  as  he  would  give,  no  doubt,  to  his  heaps 
of  gold. 

"  But  who  wouldn't  feel  sorry  for  the  poor  young  man, 
sir?  "  said  the  serving-maid  ;  "sleeping  there  like  a  log,  and 
knowing  nothing  of  his  fate." 

"  I  did  not  speak  to  you,  Nanon  !     Hold  your  tongue." 

In  that  moment  Eugenie  learned  that  a  woman  who  loves 
must  dissemble  her  feelings.     She  was  silent. 

"  Until  I  comeback,  Mme.  Grandet,  you  will  say  nothing 
about  this  to  him,  I  hope,"  the  old  cooper  continued.  "  They 
are  making  a  ditch  in  my  meadows  along  the  road,  and  1 
must  go  and  see  after  it.  I  shall  come  back  for  the  second 
breakfast  at  noon,  and  then  my  nephew  and  I  will  have  a  talk 
about  his  affairs.     As  for  you,  Mademoiselle  Eugenie,  if  you 


78  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

are  crying  over  that  popinjay,  let  us  have  no  more  of  it,  child. 
He  will  be  off  post-haste  to  the  Indies  directly,  and  you  will 
never  set  eyes  on  him  any  more." 

Her  father  took  up  his  gloves,  which  were  lying  on  the  rim 
of  his  hat,  put  them  on  in  his  cool,  deliberate  way,  inserting 
the  fingers  of  one  hand  between  those  of  the  other,  dovetail 
fashion,  so  as  to  thrust  them  down  well  into  the  tips  of  the 
gloves,  and  then  he  went  out. 

"Oh!  mamma,  I  can  scarcely  breathe  !  "  cried  Eugenie, 
when  she  was  alone  with  her  mother;  "  I  have  never  suffered 
like  this!  " 

Mine.  Grandet,  seeing  her  daughter's  white  face,  opened 
the  window  and  let  fresh  air  into  the  room. 

"  I  feel  better  now,"  said  Eugenie  after  a  little  while. 

This  nervous  excitement  in  one  who  was  usually  so  quiet 
and  self-possessed  produced  an  effect  on  Mme.  Grandet.  She 
looked  at  her  daughter,  and  her  mother's  love  and  sympathetic 
instinct  told  her  everything.  But,  in  truth,  the  celebrated 
Hungarian  twin-sisters,  united  to  each  other  by  one  of  nature's 
errors,  could  scarcely  have  lived  in  closer  sympathy  than 
Eugenie  and  her  mother.  Were  they  not  always  together: 
together  in  the  window  where  they  sat  the  livelong  day,  to- 
gether at  church ;  did  they  not  breathe  the  same  air  even  when 
they  slept  ? 

"My  poor  little  girl!"  said  Mme.  Grandet,  drawing 
Eugenie's  head  down  till  it  rested  upon  her  bosom. 

Her  daughter  lifted  her  face,  and  gave  her  mother  a  ques- 
tioning look  which  seemed  to  read  her  inmost  thoughts. 

"  Why  must  he  be  sent  to  the  Indies  ?  "  said  the  girl.  "  If 
he  is  in  trouble,  ought  he  not  to  stay  here  with  us?  Is  he  not 
our  nearest  relation  ?  " 

"  Yes,  dear  child,  that  would  only  be  natural ;  but  your 
father  has  reasons  for  what  he  does,  and  we  must  respect  them." 

Mother  and  daughter  sat  in  silence  ;  the  one  on  her  chair 
mounted  on  the  wooden  blocks,  the  other  in  her  little  arm- 


EUG&NIE   GRAND ET.  79 

chair.  Both  women  took  up  their  needlework.  Eugenie  felt 
that  her  mother  understood  her,  and  her  heart  was  full  of 
gratitude  for  such  tender  sympathy. 

"  How  kind  you  are,  dear  mamma  !  "  she  said  as  she  took 
her  mother's  hand  and  kissed  it. 

The  worn,  patient  face,  aged  with  many  sorrows,  lighted  up 
at  the  words. 

"  Do  you  like  him  ?  "  asked  Eugenie. 

For  all  answer,  Mine.  Grandet  smiled.  Then  after  a  mo- 
ment's pause  she  murmured,  "  You  cannot  surely  love  him 
already?     That  would  be  a  pity." 

"Why  would  it  be  a  pity?"  asked  Eugenie.  "You  like 
him,  Nanon  likes  him,  why  should  I  not  like  him  too?  Now 
then,  mamma,  let  us  set  the  table  for  his  breakfast." 

She  threw  down  her  work,  and  her  mother  followed  her 
example,  saying  as  she  did  so,  "  You  are  a  mad  girl  !  " 

But  none  the  less  did  she  sanction  her  daughter's  freak  by 
assisting  in  it. 

Eugenie  called  Nanon. 

"  Haven't  you  alT  you  want  yet,  mamselle  ?  " 

"  Nanon,  surely  you  will  have  some  cream  by  twelve 
o'clock?" 

"  By  twelve  o'clock  ?    Oh  !  yes,"  answered  the  old  servant. 

"Very  well,  then,  let  the  coffee  be  very  strong.  I  have 
heard  M.  des  Grassins  say  that  they  drink  their  coffee  very 
strong  in  Paris.     Putin  plenty." 

fi  And  where  is  it  to  come  from  ?  " 

"  You  must  buy  some." 

"  And  suppose  the  master  meets  me?  " 

"  He  is  down  by  the  river." 

"  I  will  just  slip  out  then.  But  M.  Fessard  asked  me  when 
I  went  about  the  candle  if  the  Three  Holy  Kings  were  paying 
us  a  visit.     Our  goings  on  will  be  all  over  the  town." 

"Your  father  would  be  quite  capable  of  beating  us,"  said 
Mme.  Grandet,  "if  he  suspected  anything  of  all  this," 


80  EUG&NIE    GRANDE T. 

"Oh!  well,  then,  never  mind;  he  will  beat  us,  we  will 
take  the  beating  on  our  knees." 

At  this  Mme.  Grandet  raised  her  eyes  to  heaven,  and  said 
no  more.  Nanon  put  on  her  sun-bonnet  and  went  out. 
Eugenie  spread  a  clean  linen  tablecloth,  then  she  went  up- 
stairs in  quest  of  some  bunches  of  grapes  which  she  had 
amused  herself  by  hanging  from  some  strings  up  in  the  attic. 
She  tripped  lightly  along  the  corridor,  so  as  not  to  disturb  her 
cousin,  and  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  stop  a  moment 
before  the  door  to  listen  to  his  even  breathing. 

"Trouble  wakes  while  he  is  sleeping,"  she  said  to  herself. 

She  arranged  her  grapes  on  the  few  last  green  vine-leaves 
as  daintily  as  any  experienced  chef  cT  office,  and  set  them  on 
the  table  in  triumph.  She  levied  contributions  on  the  pears 
which  her  father  had  counted  out,  and  piled  them  up  pyramid- 
fashion,  with  autumn  leaves  among  them.  She  came  and 
went,  and  danced  in  and  out.  She  might  have  ransacked  the 
house  ;  the  will  was  in  nowise  lacking,  but  her  father  kept 
everything  under  lock  and  key,  and  the  keys  were  in  his 
pocket.  Nanon  came  back  with  two  new-laid  eggs.  Eugenie 
could  have  flung  her  arms  round  the  girl's  neck. 

"  The  farmer  from  La  Lande  had  eggs  in  his  basket ;  I 
asked  him  for  some,  and  to  please  me  he  let  me  have  these, 
the  nice  man." 

After  two  hours  of  industrious  application,  Eugenie  suc- 
ceeded in  preparing  a  very  simple  meal ;  it  cost  but  little,  it 
is  true,  but  it  was  a  terrible  infringement  of  the  immemorial 
laws  and  customs  of  the  house.  No  one  sat  down  to  the  mid- 
day meal,  which  consisted  of  a  little  bread,  some  fruit  or 
butter,  and  a  glass  of  wine.  Twenty  times  in  those  two  hours 
Eugenie  had  left  her  work  to  watch  the  coffee  boil,  or  to 
listen  for  any  sound  announcing  that  her  cousin  was  getting 
up;  now  looking  round  on  the  table  drawn  up  to  the  fire, 
with  one  of  the  armchairs  set  beside  it  for  her  cousin,  on  the 
two  plates  of  fruit,  the  egg-cups,  the  bottle  of  white  wine,  the 


EUG&NIE    GRAND ET.  81 

bread,  and  the  little  pyramid  of  white  sugar  in  a  saucer; 
Eugenie  trembled  from  head  to  foot  at  the  mere  thought  of 
the  glance  her  father  would  give  her  if  he  should  happen  to 
come  in  at  that  moment.  Often,  therefore,  did  she  look  at 
the  clock,  to  see  if  there  was  yet  time  for  her  cousin  to  finish 
his  breakfast  before  her  parent's  return. 

"  Never  mind,  Eugenie,  if  your  father  comes  in,  I  will 
take  all  the  blame,"  said  Mme.  Grandet. 

Eugenie  could  not  keep  back  the  tears.  "  Oh  !  my  kind 
mother,"  she  cried ;   "  I  have  not  loved  you  enough  !  " 

Charles,  after  making  innumerable  pirouettes  round  his 
room,  came  down  at  last,  singing  gay  little  snatches  of  song. 
Luckily  it  was  only  eleven  o'clock  after  all.  He  had  taken 
as  much  pains  with  his  appearance  (the  Parisian  !)  as  if  he 
had  been  staying  in  the  chateau  belonging  to  the  high-born 
fair  one  who  was  traveling  in  Scotland ;  and  now  he  came  in 
with  that  gracious  air  of  condescension  which  sits  not  ill  on 
youth,  and  which  gave  Eugenie  a  melancholy  pleasure.  He  had 
come  to  regard  the  collapse  of  his  castles  in  Anjou  as  a  very 
good  joke,  and  went  up  to  his  aunt  quite  gaily. 

" 1  hope  you  slept  well,  dear  aunt?  And  you  too,  cousin?" 

"  Very  well,  sir  ;  how  did  you  sleep  ?  " 

"Soundly." 

"Cousin,  you  must  be  hungry,"  said  Eugenie;  "sit 
down." 

"  Oh  !  I  never  breakfast  before  twelve  o'clock,  just  after  I 
rise.     But  I   have   fared   so  badly  on   my  journey,  that  I  will 

yield  to  persuasion.     Besides "  he  drew  out  the  daintiest 

little  watch  that  ever  issued  from  Breguet's  workshop.  "  Dear 
me,  it  is  only  eleven  o'clock;  I  have  been  up  betimes." 

"  Up  betimes?  "  asked  Mme.  Grandet. 

"Yes,  but  I  wanted  to  set  my  things  straight.  Well,  I  am 
quite  ready  for  something,  something  not  very  substantial,  a 
fowl  or  a  partridge." 

"  Holy  Virgin  !  "  exclaimed  Nanon,  hearing  these  words. 
6 


82  EUGENIE   GRANDET. 

"  A  partridge,"  said  Eugenie  to  herself.  She  would  willingly 
have  given  all  she  had  for  one. 

"  Come  and  take  your  seat,"  said  Mme.  Grandet,  address- 
ing her  nephew. 

The  dandy  sank  into  the  armchair  in  a  graceful  attitude, 
much  as  a  pretty  woman  might  recline  on  her  sofa.  Eugenie 
and  her  mother  drew  their  chairs  to  the  fire  and  sat  near  him. 

"  Do  you  always  live  here?"  Charles  inquired,  thinking 
that  the  room  looked  even  more  hideous  by  daylight  than  by 
candlelight. 

"Always,"  Eugenie  answered,  watching  him  as  she  spoke. 
"Always,  except  during  the  vintage.  Then  we  go  to  help 
Nan  on,  and  we  all  stay  at  the  Abbey  at  Noyers." 

"  Do  you  ever  take  a  walk  ?  ' ' 

"  Sometimes,  on  Sundays  after  vespers,  when  it  is  fine,  we 
walk  down  as  far  as  the  bridge,"  said  Mme.  Grandet,  "  or  we 
sometimes  go  to  see  them  cutting  the  hay." 

"  Have  you  a  theatre  here?  " 

"Go  to  the  play!"  cried  Mme.  Grandet ;  "go  to  see 
play-actors  !  Why,  sir,  do  you  not  know  that  that  is  a  mortal 
sin?" 

"There,  sir,"  said  Nanon,  bringing  in  the  eggs,  "  we  will 
give  you  chickens  in  the  shell." 

"  Oh  !  new-laid  eggs,"  said  Charles,  who,  after  the  manner 
of  those  accustomed  to  luxury,  had  quite  forgotten  all  about 
his  partridge.  "  Delicious  !  Do  you  happen  to  have  any 
butter,  eh,  my  good  girl?" 

"Butter?  If  you  have  butter  now,  you  will  have  no  cake 
by-and-by,"  said  Nanon. 

"Yes,  of  course,  Nanon;  bring  some  butter,"  cried  Eu- 
genie. 

The  young  girl  watched  her  cousin  while  he  cut  his  bread 
and  butter  into  strips  and  felt  happy.  The  most  romantic 
shopgirl  in  Paris  could  not  more  thoroughly  enjoy  the  spectacle 
of  innocence  triumphant  in  a  melodrama.     It  must  be  con- 


EUG&NIE    GRANDET.  83 

ceded  that  Charles,  who  had  been  brought  up  by  a  graceful 
and  charming  mother,  and  had  received  his  "  finishing  educa- 
tion "  from  an  accomplished  woman  of  the  world,  was  as 
dainty,  neat,  and  elegant  in  his  ways  as  any  coxcomb  of  the 
gentler  sex.  The  girl's  quiet  sympathy  produced  an  almost 
magnetic  effect.  Charles,  finding  himself  thus  waited  upon 
by  his  cousin  and  aunt,  could  not  resist  the  influence  of  their 
overflowing  kindness.  He  was  radiant  with  good-humor,  and 
the  look  he  gave  Eugenie  was  almost  a  smile.  As  he  looked 
more  closely  at  her  he  noticed  her  pure,  regular  features,  her 
unconscious  attitude,  the  wonderful  clearness  of  her  eyes,  in 
which  love  sparkled,  though  she  as  yet  knew  nothing  of  love 
but  its  pain  and  a  wistful  longing. 

"  Really,  my  dear  cousin,"  he  said,  "  if  you  were  in  a  box 
at  the  opera  and  in  evening  dress,  and  I  would  answer  for  it, 
my  aunt's  remark  about  deadly  sin  would  be  fully  justified, 
all  the  men  would  become  envious  and  all  the  women 
jealous." 

Eugenie's  heart  beat  fast  with  joy  at  this  compliment,  though 
it  conveyed  no  meaning  whatever  to  her  mind. 

"You  are  laughing  at  a  poor  little  country  cousin,"  she  said. 

"If  you  knew  me  better,  cousin,  you  would  know  that  I 
detest  banter;  it  sears  the  heart  and  deadens  the  feelings." 
And  he  swallowed  down  a  strip  of  bread  and  butter  with  per- 
fect satisfaction. 

"No,"  he  continued,  "I  never  make  fun  of  others,  very 
likely  because  I  have  not  wit  enough,  a  defect  which  puts  me 
at  a  great  disadvantage.  They  have  a  deadly  trick  in  Paris 
of  saying,  '  He  is  so  good-natured,'  which,  being  interpreted, 
means — '  the  poor  youth  is  as  stupid  as  a  rhinoceros.'  But  as 
I  happen  to  be  rich,  and  it  is  known  that  I  can  hit  the  bull's 
eye  straight  off  at  thirty  paces  with  any  kind  of  pistol  any- 
where, these  witticisms  are  not  leveled  at  me." 

"It  is  evident  from  what  you  say,  nephew,"  said  Mme. 
Grandet  gravely,  "that  you  have  a  kind  heart." 


84  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

"That  is  a  very  pretty  ring  of  yours,"  said  Eugenie;  "is 
there  any  harm  in  asking  to  see  it?  " 

Charles  took  off  the  ring  and  held  it  out ;  Eugenie  reddened 
as  her  cousin's  rose-pink  nails  came  in  contact  with  her  finger- 
tips. 

"  Mother,  only  see  how  fine  the  work  is  !  " 

"  Oh,  what  a  lot  of  gold  there  is  in  it,"  said  Nanon,  who 
brought  in  the  coffee. 

"What  is  that?"  asked  Charles,  laughing,  as  he  pointed 
to  an  oval  pipkin,  made  of  glazed  brown  earthenware,  orna- 
mented without  by  a  circular  fringe  of  ashes.  It  was  full  of  a 
brown  boiling  liquid,  in  which  coffee  grounds  were  visible  as 
they  rose  to  the  surface  and  fell  again. 

"  Coffee;  boiling  hot !  "  answered  Nanon. 

"  Oh  !  my  dear  aunt,  I  must  at  least  leave  some  beneficent 
trace  of  my  stay  here.  You  are  a  long  way  behind  the  times  ! 
I  will  show  you  how  to  make  decent  coffee  in  a  Chaptal 
coffee-pot."  Forthwith  he  endeavored  to  explain  the  princi- 
ples on  which  this  utensil  is  constructed,  and  how  the  coffee 
should  be  prepared. 

"  Bless  me  !  if  there  is  all  that  to-do  about  it,"  said  Nanon, 
"you  would  have  to  give  your  whole  time  to  it.  I'll  never 
make  coffee  that  way,  I  know.  Who  is  to  cut  the  grass  for 
our  cow  while  I  am  looking  after  the  coffee-pot?  " 

"  I  would  do  it,"  said  Eugenie. 

"  Child !  "  said  Mme.  Grandet,  with  a  look  at  her  daughter ; 
and  at  the  word  came  a  swift  recollection  of  the  misery  about 
to  overwhelm  the  unconscious  young  man,  and  the  three  wo- 
men were  suddenly  silent,  and  gazed  pityingly  at  him.  He 
could  not  understand  it. 

"  What  is  it,  cousin  ?  "   he  asked  Eugenie. 

"Hush!"  said  Mme.  Grandet,  seeing  that  the  girl  was 
about  to  reply.  "  You  know  that  your  father  means  to  speak 
to  the  gentleman " 

"Say  'Charles,'  "  said  young  Grandet. 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  85 

"  Oh,  is  your  name  Charles?  "  said  Eugenie.  "  It  is  a  nice 
name." 

Evil  forebodings  are  seldom  vain. 

Just  at  that  moment  Mme.  Grandet,  Eugenie,  and  Nanon, 
who  could  not  think  of  the  cooper's  return  without  shudder- 
ing, heard  the  familiar  knock  at  the  door. 

"  That  is  papa  !  "  cried  Eugenie. 

She  took  away  the  saucer  full  of  sugar,  leaving  one  or  two 
lumps  on  the  tablecloth.  Nanon  hurried  away  with  the  egg- 
cups.  Mme.  Grandet  started  up  like  a  frightened  fawn. 
There  was  a  sudden  panic  of  terror,  which  amazed  Charles, 
who  was  quite  at  a  loss  to  account  for  it. 

"Why,  what  is  the  matter?  "  he  asked. 

"  My  father  is  coming  in,"  explained  Eugenie. 

"  Well,  and  what  then  ?  " 

M.  Grandet  entered  the  room,  gave  one  sharp  glance  at  the 
table,  and  another  at  Charles.     He  saw  how  it  was  at  once. 

"  Aha  !  you  are  making  a  fete  for  your  nephew.  Good, 
very  good,  oh  !  very  good,  indeed  !  "  he  said,  without  stam- 
mering.     "  When  The  cat  is  away,  the  mice  may  play." 

"  Fete?  "  thought  Charles,  who  had  not  the  remotest  con- 
ception of  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  Grandet  household. 

'■'  Bring  me  my  glass,  Nanon,"  said  the  good  man. 

Eugenie  went  for  the  glass.  Grandet  drew  from  his  waist- 
coat pocket  a  large  clasp-knife  with  a  stag's  horn  handle,  cut 
a  slice  of  bread,  buttered  it  slowly  and  sparingly,  and  began 
to  eat  as  he  stood.  Just  then  Charles  put  some  sugar  into  his 
coffee  ;  this  called  Grandet's  attention  to  the  pieces  of  sugar 
on  the  table  ;  he  looked  hard  at  his  wife,  who  turned  pale, 
and  came  a  step  or  two  towards  him  ;  he  bent  down  and  said 
in  the  poor  woman's  ear — 

"  Where  did  all  that  sugar  come  from?  " 

"  Nanon  went  out  to  Fessard's  for  some  ;  there  was  none  in 
the  house." 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  painful  interest  that  this 


86  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

dumb  show  possessed  for  the  three  women  ;  Nanon  had  left 
her  kitchen,  and  was  looking  into  the  dining-room  to  see  how 
things  went  there.  Charles  meanwhile  tasted  his  coffee, 
found  it  rather  strong,  and  looked  round  for  another  piece  of 
sugar,  but  Grandet  had  already  pounced  upon  it  and  taken  it 
away. 

"  What  do  you  want,  nephew  ?■"  the  old  man  inquired. 

"  The  sugar."  A 

"Pour  in  some  more  milk  if  your  coffee  is  too  strong," 
answered  the  master  of  the  house. 

Eugenie  took  up  the  saucer,  of  which  Grandet  had  pre- 
viously taken  possession,  and  set  it  on  the  table,  looking 
quietly  at  her  father  the  while.  Truly,  the  fair  Parisian  who 
exerts  all  the  strength  of  her  weak  arms  to  help  her  lover  to 
escape  by  a  ladder  of  silken  cords,  displays  less  courage  than 
Eugenie  showed  when  she  put  the  sugar  upon  the  table.  The 
Parisian  will  have  her  reward.  She  will  proudly  exhibit  the 
bruises  on  a  round  white  arm,  her  lover  will  bathe  them  with 
tears  and  cover  them  with  kisses,  and  pain  will  be  extinguished 
in  bliss  \  but  Charles  had  not  the  remotest  conception  of  what 
his  cousin  endured  for  him,  or  of  the  horrible  dismay  that 
filled  her  heart  as  she  met  her  father's  angry  eyes ;  he  would 
never  even  know  of  her  sacrifice. 

"You  are  eating  nothing,  wife  !  " 

The  poor  bond-slave  went  to  the  table,  cut  a  piece  of  bread 
in  fear  and  trembling,  and  took  a  pear.  Eugenie,  grown 
reckless,  offered  the  grapes  to  her  father,  saying  as  she  did  so — 

"Just  try  some  of  my  fruit,  papa!  You  will  take  some, 
will  you  not,  cousin  ?  I  brought  those  pretty  grapes  down  on 
purpose  for  you." 

"Oh!  if  they  could  have  their  way,  they  would  turn 
Saumur  upside  down  for  you,  nephew  !  As  soon  as  you  have 
finished  we  will  take  a  turn  in  the  garden  together  ;  I  have 
some  things  to  tell  you  that  would  take  a  deal  of  sugar  to 
sweeten  them." 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  87 

Eugenie  and  her  mother  both  gave  Charles  a  look,  which 
the  young  man  could  not  mistake. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that,  uncle  ?  Since  my  mother 
died "  (here  his  voice  softened  a  little)  "  there  is  no  mis- 
fortune possible  for  me " 

"  Who  can  know  what  afflictions  God  may  send  to  make 
trial  of  us,  nephew  ?  "  said  his  aunt. 

"Tut,  tut,  tut,"  muttered  Grandet,  "here  you  are  begin- 
ning with  your  folly  already  !  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  you 
have  such  white  hands,  nephew." 

He  displayed  the  fists,  like  shoulders  of  mutton,  with  which 
nature  had  terminated  his  own  arms. 

"  That  is  the  sort  of  hand  to  rake  the  crowns  together ! 
You  put  the  kind  of  leather  on  your  feet  that  we  used  to  make 
pocket-books  of  to  keep  bills  in.  That  is  the  way  you  have 
been  brought  up.      That's  bad  !   that's  bad  !  " 

"What  do  you  mean,  uncle?  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  under- 
stand one  word  of  this." 

"Come  along,"  said  Grandet. 

The  miser  shut  his~knife  with  a  snap,  drained  his  glass,  and 
opened  the  door. 

"Oh  !  keep  up  your  courage,  cousin  !  " 

Something  in  the  girl's  voice  sent  a  sudden  chill  through 
Charles ;  he  followed  his  formidable  relative  with  dreadful 
misgivings.  Eugenie  and  her  mother  and  Nanon  went  into 
the  kitchen  ;  an  uncontrollable  anxiety  led  them  to  watch  the 
two  actors  in  the  scene  which  was  about  to  take  place  in  the 
damp  little  garden. 

Uncle  and  nephew  walked  together  in  silence  at  first. 
Grandet  felt  the  situation  to  be  a  somewhat  awkward  one  ;  not 
that  he  shrank  at  all  from  telling  Charles  of  his  father's  death, 
but  he  felt  a  kind  of  pity  for  a  young  man  left  in  this  way 
without  a  penny  in  the  world,  and  he  cast  about  for  phrases 
that  should  break  this  cruel  news  as  gently  as  might  be. 
"  You  have  lost  your  father  !  "  he  could  say  that ;  there  was 


88  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

nothing  in  that;  fathers  usually  predecease  their  children. 
But,  "  You  have  not  a  penny  !  "  All  the  woes  of  the  world 
were  summed  up  in  those  words,  so  for  the  third  time  the 
worthy  man  walked  the  whole  length  of  the  path  in  the  centre 
of  the  garden,  crunching  the  gravel  beneath  his  heavy  boots, 
and  no  word  was  said. 

At  all  great  crises  in  our  lives,  any  sudden  joy  or  great  sor- 
row, there  comes  a  vivid  consciousness  of  our  surroundings 
that  stamps  them  on  the  memory  forever;  and  Charles,  with 
every  faculty  strained  and  intent,  saw  the  box-edging  to  the 
borders,  the  falling  autumn  leaves,  the  mouldering  walls,  the 
gnarled  and  twisted  boughs  of  the  fruit-trees,  and  till  his 
dying  day  every  picturesque  detail  of  the  little  garden  came 
back  with  the  memory  of  the  supreme  hour  of  that  early 
sorrow. 

"It  is  very  fine,  very  warm,"  said  Grandet,  drawing  in  a 
deep  breath  of  air. 

"Yes,  uncle,  but  why " 

"Well,  my  boy,"  his  uncle  resumed,  "I  have  some  bad 
news  for  you.     Your  father  is  very  ill " 

"What  am  I  doing  here?"  cried  Charles.  "  Nanon  !  " 
he  shouted,  "order  post-horses!  I  shall  be  sure  to  find  a 
carriage  of  some  sort  in  the*  place,  I  suppose,"  he  added, 
turning  to  his  uncle,  who  had  not  stirred  from  where  he 
stood. 

"  Horses  and  carriage  are  of  no  use,"  Grandet  answered, 
looking  at  Charles,  who  immediately  stared  straight  before 
him  in  silence.  "  Yes,  my  poor  boy,  you  guess  what  has 
happened  ;  he  is  dead.  But  that  is  nothing ;  there  is  some- 
thing worse;  he  has  shot  himself  through  the  head " 

"  My  father?" 

"Yes,  but  that  is  nothing  either.  The  newspapers  are  dis- 
cussing it,  as  if  it  were  any  business  of  theirs.  There,  read 
for  yourself." 

Grandet  had  borrowed  Cruchot's  paper,  and  now  he  laid 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  89 

the  fatal  paragraph  before  Charles.  The  poor  young  fellow — 
he  was  only  a  lad  as  yet — made  no  attempt  to  hide  his  emo- 
tion, and  burst  into  tears. 

"  Come,  that  is  better,"  said  Grandet  to  himself.  "  That 
look  in  his  eyes  frightened  me.  He  is  crying  ;  he  will  pull 
through.  Never  mind,  my  poor  nephew,"  Grandet  resumed 
aloud,  not  knowing  whether  Charles  heard  him  or  no,  "  that 
is  nothing",  you  will  get  over  it,  but " 

"  Never  !  never  !     My  father  !  my  father  !  " 

"  He  has  ruined  you  ;  you  are  penniless." 

"  What  is  that  to  me.     Where  is  my  father  ? my  father!" 

The  sound  of  his  sobbing  filled  the  little  garden,  reverberated 
in  ghastly  echoes  from  the  walls.  Tears  are  as  infectious  as 
laughter;  the  three  women  wept  with  pity  for  him.  Charles 
broke  from  his  uncle  without  waiting  to  hear  more,  and 
sprang  into  the  yard,  found  the  staircase,  and  fled  to  his  own 
room,  where  he  flung  himself  across  the  bed  and  buried  his 
face  in  the  bedclothes,  that  he  might  give  way  to  his  grief  in 
solitude  as  far  as  possible  from  these  relations. 

'■  Let  him  alone  till  the  first  shower  is  over,"  said  Grandet, 
going  back  to  the  parlor.  Eugenie  and  her  mother  had  hastily 
returned  to  their  places,  had  dried  their  eyes,  and  were  sewing 
with  cold  trembling  fingers. 

"But  that  fellow  is  good  for  nothing,"  went  on  Grandet; 
il  he  is  so  taken  up  with  dead  folk  that  he  doesn't  even  think 
about  the  money." 

Eugenie  shuddered  to  hear  the  most  sacred  of  sorrows 
spoken  of  in  such  a  way  ;  from  that  moment  she  began  to 
criticise  her  father.  Charles'  sobs,  smothered  though  they 
were,  rang  through  that  house  of  echoes  ;  the  sounds  seemed 
to  come  from  under  the  earth,  a  heartrending  wail  that  grew 
fainter  towards  the  end  of  the  day,  and  only  ceased  as  night 
drew  on. 

"Poor  boy  !  "  said  Mme.  Grandet. 

It  was  an  unfortunate  remark  !     M.  Grandet  looked  at  his 

D 


90  EUGENIE    GRANDE! . 

wife,  then  at  Eugenie,  then  at  the  sugar  basin ;  he  recollected 
the  sumptuous  breakfast  prepared  that  morning  for  their 
unhappy  kinsman,  and  planted  himself  in  the  middle  of  the 
room. 

"  Oh  !  by-the-by,"  he  said,  in  his  usual  cool,  deliberate 
way,  "  I  hope  you  will  not  carry  your  extravagance  any 
farther,  Mme.  Grandet ;  I  do  not  give  you  MY  money  for  you 
to  squander  it  on  sugar  for  that  young  rogue." 

"  Mother  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it,"  said 
Eugenie.     "  It  was  I " 

"Because  you  are  come  of  age,"  Grandet  interrupted  his 
daughter,  "  you  think  you  can  set  yourself  to  thwart  me,  I 
suppose.     Mind  what  you  are  about,  Eugenie " 

"  But,  father,  your  own  brother's  son  ought  not  to  have  to 
go  without  sugar  in  your  house." 

11  Tut,  tut,  tut,  tut !  "  came  from  the  cooper  in  a  cadence 
of  four  semitones.  {t  'Tis  '  my  nephew  '  here,  and  '  my 
brother's  son  '  there;  Charles  is  nothing  to  us;  he  has  not  a 
brass  farthing.  His  father  is  a  bankrupt,  and  when  the  young 
sprig  has  cried  as  much  as  he  wishes,  he  shall  clear  out  of  this  ; 
I  will  not  have  my  house  turned  topsy-turvy  for  him." 

"What  is  a  bankrupt,  father?"  asked  Eugenie. 

"A  bankrupt,"  replied  her  father,  "  is  guilty  of  the  most 
dishonorable  action  that  can  dishonor  a  man." 

"  It  must  be  a  very  great  sin,"  said  Mme.  Grandet,  "  and 
our  brother  will  perhaps  be  eternally  lost." 

"There  you  are  with  your  preachments,"  her  husband 
retorted,  shrugging  his  shoulders.  "  A  bankrupt,  Eugenie," 
her  father  continued,  "  is  a  thief  whom  the  law  unfortunately 
takes  under  its  protection.  People  trusted  Guillaume  Grandet 
with  their  goods,  confiding  in  his  character  for  fair-dealing 
and  honesty  ;  he  has  taken  all  they  have,  and  left  them  noth- 
ing but  the  eyes  in  their  heads  to  cry  over  their  losses  with. 
A  bankrupt  is  worse  than  a  highwayman  ;  a  highwayman  sets 
upon  you,  and  you  have  a  chance  to  defend  yourself;  he  risks 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  91 

his  life  besides,  while  the  other Charles  is  disgraced,  in 

fact." 

The  words  filled  the  poor  girl's  heart ;  they  weighed  upon 
her  with  all  their  weight ;  she  herself  was  so  scrupulously 
conscientious ;  no  flower  in  the  depths  of  a  forest  had  grown 
more  delicately  free  from  spot  or  stain  ;  she  knew  none  of 
the  maxims  of  worldly  wisdom,  and  nothing  of  its  quibbles 
and  its  sophistries.  So  she  accepted  her  father's  cruel  defini- 
tion and  sweeping  statements  as  to  bankrupts;  he  drew  no 
distinction  between  a  fraudulent  bankruptcy  and  a  failure 
from  unavoidable  causes,  and  how  should  she? 

"  But,  father,  could  you  not  have  prevented  this  misfor- 
tune?" 

"  My  brother  did  not  ask  my  advice;  besides,  his  liabilities 
amount  to  four  millions." 

"How  much  is  a  million,  father?"  asked  Eugenie,  with 
the  simplicity  of  a  child  who  would  fain  have  its  wish  fulfilled 
at  once. 

"A  million?"  queried  Grandet.  "Why,  it  is  a  million 
francs,  four  hundred  thousand  five-franc  pieces ;  there  are 
twenty  sous  in  a  franc,  and  it  takes  five  francs  of  twenty  sous 
each  to  make  a  five-franc  piece." 

"Mon  Dieu  /  Mon  Dieu  !  "  cried  Eugenie,  "  how  came  my 
uncle  to  have  four  millions  of  his  own  ?  Is  there  really  any- 
body in  France  who  has  so  many  millions  as  that  ?  " 

Grandet  stroked  his  daughter's  chin  and  smiled.  The  wen 
seemed  to  grow  larger. 

"What  will  become  of  cousin  Charles?" 

"  He  will  set  out  for  the  East  Indies,  and  try  to  make  a 
fortune.     That  is  his  father's  wish." 

"  But  has  he  any  money  to  go  with  ?  " 

"  I  shall  pay  his  passage  out  as  far  as yes as  far  as 

Nantes." 

Eugenie  sprang  up  and  flung  her  arms  about  her  father's 
neck. 


92  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

"Oh  !  father,"  she  said,  "you  are  good  !  " 

Her  warm  embrace  embarrassed  Grandet  somewhat,  per- 
haps, too,  his  conscience  was  not  quite  at  ease. 

"Does  it  take  a  long  while  to  make  a  million?"  she 
asked. 

"Lord  !  yes,"  said  the  cooper;  "you  know  what  a  Napo- 
leon is ;  well,  then,  it  takes  fifty  thousand  of  them  to  make  a 
million." 

"  Mamma,  we  will  have  a  novena  said  for  him." 

"That  was  what  I  was  thinking,"  her  mother  replied. 

"  Just  like  you  !  always  thinking  how  to  spend  money. 
Really,  one  might  suppose  that  we  had  any  amount  of  money 
to  throw  away  !  " 

As  he  spoke,  a  sound  of  low  hoarse  sobbing,  more  ominous 
than  any  which  had  preceded  it,  came  from  the  garret.  Eu- 
genie and  her  mother  shuddered. 

"Nanon,"  called  Grandet,  "go  up  and  see  that  he  is  not 
killing  himself." 

"Look  here  !  you  two,"  he  continued,  turning  to  his  wife 
and  daughter,  whose  cheeks  grew  white  at  his  tones,  "  there 
is  to  be  no  nonsense,  mind  !  I  am  leaving  the  house.  I  am 
going  round  to  see  the  Dutchmen  who  are  going  to-day. 
Then  I  shall  go  to  Cruchot  and  have  a  talk  with  him  about 
all  this." 

He  went  out.  As  soon  as  the  door  closed  upon  Grandet, 
Eugenie  and  her  mother  breathed  more  freely.  The  girl  had 
never  felt  constraint  in  her  father's  presence  until  that  morn- 
ing ;  but  a  few  hours  had  wrought  rapid  changes  in  her  ideas 
and  feelings. 

"  Mamma,  how  many  louis  is  a  hogshead  of  wine  worth  ?  " 

"  Your  father  gets  something  between  a  hundred  and  a 
hundred  and  fifty  francs  for  his;  sometimes  two  hundred,  I 
believe,  from  what  I  have  heard  him  say." 

"And  would  there  be  fourteen  hundred  hogsheads  in  a 
vintage?" 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  93 

"I  don't  know  how  many  there  are,  child,  upon  my  word  ; 
your  father  never  talks  about  business  to  me." 

"  But,  anyhow,  papa  must  be  rich." 

"May  be.  But  M.  Cruchot  told  me  that  your  father 
bought  Froidfond  two  years  ago.  That  would  be  a  heavy  pull 
on  him." 

Eugenie,  now  at  a  loss  as  to  her  father's  wealth,  went  no 
farther  with  her  arithmetic. 

"  He  did  not  even  so  much  as  see  me,  the  poor  dear  !  " 
said  Nanon  on  her  return.  "  He  is  lying  there  on  his  bed 
like  a  calf,  crying  like  a  Magdalen;  you  never  saw  the  like! 
Poor  young  man,  what  can  be  the  matter  with  him?  " 

"Let  us  go  up  at  once  and  comfort  him,  mamma;  if  we 
hear  a  knock,  we  will  come  downstairs." 

There  was  something  in  the  musical  tones  of  her  daughter's 
voice  which  Mme.  Grandet  could  not  resist.  Eugenie  was 
sublime  ;  she  was  a  girl  no  longer,  she  was  a  woman.  With 
beating  hearts  they  climbed  the  stairs  and  went  together  to 
Charles'  room.  The  door  was  open.  The  young  man  saw 
nothing,  and  heard  nothing  ;  he  was  absorbed  in  his  grief,  an 
inarticulate  cry  broke  from  him  now  and  again. 

"  How  he  loves  his  father!  "  said  Eugenie  in  a  low  voice, 
and  in  her  tone  there  was  an  unmistakable  accent  which  be- 
trayed the  passion  in  her  heart,  and  hopes  of  which  she  herself 
was  unaware.  Mme.  Grandet,  with  the  quick  instinct  of  a 
mother's  love,  glanced  at  her  daughter  and  spoke  in  a  low 
voice  in  her  ear. 

"  Take  care,"  she  said,  "  or  you  may  love  him." 

"  Love  him  !  "  said  Eugenie.  "Ah  !  if  you  only  knew 
what  my  father  said." 

Charles  moved  slightly  as  he  lay,  and  saw  his  aunt  and 
cousin. 

"  I  have  lost  my  father,"  he  cried;  "  my  poor  father  !  If 
he  had  only  trusted  me  and  told  me  about  his  losses,  we 
might  have  worked  together   to  repair  them.     Mon  Dicu  J 


94  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

my  kind  father  !  I  was  so  sure  that  I  should  see  him  again, 
and  I  said  good-bye  so  carelessly,  I  am  afraid,  never  think- 
ing  " 

His  words  were  interrupted  by  sobs. 

"  We  will  surely  pray  for  him,"  said  Mme.  Grandet. 
"  Submit  yourself  to  the  will  of  God." 

"Take  courage,  cousin,"  said  Eugenie  gently;  "nothing 
can  give  your  father  back  to  you  ;  you  must  now  think  how 
to  save  your  honor " 

A  woman  always  has  her  wits  about  her,  even  in  her  capa- 
city of  comforter,  and  with  instinctive  tact  Eugenie  sought  to 
divert  her  cousin's  mind  from  his  sorrow  by  leading  him  to 
think  about  himself. 

"My  honor?"  cried  the  young  man,  hastily  pushing  back 
the  hair  from  his  eyes.  He  sat  upright  upon  the  bed,  and 
folded  his  arms.  "Ah  !  true.  My  uncle  said  that  my  father 
had  failed." 

He  hid  his  face  in  his  hands  with  a  heartrending  cry  of 
pain. 

"Leave  me!  leave  me!  cousin  Eugenie,"  he  entreated. 
"Oh  !  God,  forgive  my  father,  for  he  must  have  been  terribly 
unhappy  !  " 

There  was  something  in  the  sight  of  this  young  sorrow,  this 
utter  abandonment  of  grief,  that  was  horribly  engaging.  It 
was  a  sorrow  that  shrank  from  the  gaze  of  others,  and  Charles' 
gesture  of  entreaty  that  they  should  leave  him  to  himself  was 
understood  by  Eugenie  and  her  mother.  They  went  silently 
downstairs  again,  took  their  places  by  the  great  window,  and 
sewed  on  for  nearly  an  hour  without  a  word  to  each  other. 

Eugenie  had  looked  round  the  room  ;  it  was  a  stolen 
glance.  In  one  of  those  hasty  surveys  by  which  a  girl  sees 
everything  in  a  moment,  she  had  noticed  the  pretty  trifles  on 
the  toilet-table — the  scissors,  the  razors  mounted  with  gold. 
The  gleams  of  splendor  and  luxury,  seen  amidst  all  this 
misery,  made  Charles  still  more  interesting  in  her  eyes,  per- 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  95 

haps  by  the  very  force  of  the  contrast.  Their  life  had  been 
so  lonely  and  so  quiet ;  such  an  event  as  this,  with  its  pain- 
ful interest,  had  never  broken  the  monotony  of  their  lives, 
little  had  occurred  to  stir  their  imagination,  and  now  this 
tragical  drama  was  being  enacted  under  their  eyes. 

"  Mamma,''  said  Eugenie,  "  shall  we  wear  mourning  ?  " 

"Your  father  will  decide  that,"  replied  Mme.  Grandet, 
and  once  more  they  sewed  in  silence.  Eugenie's  needle 
moved  with  a  mechanical  regularity,  which  betrayed  her  pre- 
occupation of  mind.  The  first  wish  of  this  adorable  girl  was 
to  share  her  cousin's  mourning.  About  four  o'clock  a  sharp 
knock  at  the  door  sent  a  sudden  thrill  of  terror  through  Mme. 
Grandet. 

"What  can  have  brought  your  father  back?"  she  said  to 
her  daughter. 

The  vine-grower  came  in  in  high  good-humor.  He  rubbed 
his  hands  so  energetically  that  nothing  but  a  skin  like  leather 
could  have  borne  it,  and  indeed  his  hands  were  tanned  like 
Russia  leather,  though  the  fragrant  pine-rosin  and  incense 
had  been  omitted  in  the  process.  For  a  time  he  walked  up 
and  down  and  looked  at  the  weather,  but  at  last  his  secret 
escaped  him. 

'^have  hooked  them,  wife,"  he  said,  without  stammering; 
"  I  have  them  safe.  Our  wine  is  sold  !  The  Dutchmen  and 
Belgians  were  setting  out  this  morning ;  I  hung  about  in  the 
market-place  in  front  of  their  inn,  looking  as  simple  as  I 
could.  What's-his-name — you  know  the  man — came  up  to 
me.  All  the  best  growers  are  hanging  off  and  holding  their 
vintages ;  they  wanted  to  wait,  and  so  they  can,  I  have  not 
hindered  them.  Our  Belgian  was  at  his  wits'  end,  I  saw  that. 
So  the  bargain  was  struck  ;  he  is  taking  the  whole  of  our  vin- 
tage at  two  hundred  francs  the  hogshead,  half  of  it  paid  down 
at  once  in  gold,  and  I  have  promissory  notes  for  the  rest. 
There  are  six  louis  for  you.  In  three  months'  time  prices 
will  go  down." 


96  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

The  last  words  came  out  quietly  enough,  but  there  was 
something  so  sardonic  in  the  tone  that  if  the  little  knots  of 
growers,  then  standing  in  the  twilight  in  the  market-place  of 
Saumur,  in  dismay  at  the  news  of  Grandet's  sale,  had  heard 
him  speak,  they  would  have  shuddered ;  there  would  have 
been  a  panic  on  the  market — wines  would  have  fallen  fifty 
per  cent. 

"  You  have  a  thousand  hogsheads  this  year,  father,  have 
you  not?"  asked  Eugenie. 

"Yes,  little  girl." 

These  words  indicated  that  the  cooper's  joy  had  indeed 
reached  high-water  mark. 

"  That  will  mean  two  hundred  thousand  francs?" 

"Yes,  Mademoiselle  Grandet." 

"  Well,  then,  father,  you  can  easily  help  Charles." 

The  surprise,  the  wrath,  and  bewilderment  with  which 
Belshazzar  beheld  Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin,  written  upon 
his  palace  wall  were  as  nothing  compared  with  Grandet's 
cold  fury  ;  he  had  forgotten  all  about  Charles,  and  now  he 
found  that  all  his  daughter's  inmost  thoughts  were  of  his 
nephew,  and  that  this  arithmetic  of  hers  referred  to  him.  It 
was  exasperating. 

"  Look  here  !  "  he  thundered  ;  '*  ever  since  that  scapegrace 
set  foot  in  my  house  everything  has  gone  askew.  You  take  it 
upon  yourselves  to  buy  sugar-plums,  and  make  a  great  set-out 
for  him.  I  will  not  have  these  doings.  I  should  think,  at 
my  age,  I  ought  to  know  what  is  right  and  proper  to  do.  At 
any  rate,  I  have  no  need  to  take  lessons  from  my  daughter, 
nor  from  any  one  else.  I  shall  do  for  my  nephew  whatever  it 
is  right  and  proper  for  me  to  do ;  it  is  no  business  of  yours, 
you  need  not  meddle  in  it.  And  now,  as  for  you,  Eugenie," 
he  added,  turning  towards  her,  "if  you  say  another  word 
about  it,  I  will  send  you  and  Nanon  off  to  the  Abbey  at 
Noyers,  see  if  I  don't.  Where  is  that  boy?  has  he  come 
downstairs  yet?" 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  97 

"No,  dear,"  answered  Mme.  Grandet. 

"  Why,  what  is  he  doing  then  ?  " 

"He  is  crying  for  his  father,"  Eugenie  said. 

Grandet  looked  at  his  daughter,  and  found  nothing  to  say. 
There  was  some  touch  of  the  father  even  in  him.  He  took 
one  or  two  turns  up  and  down,  and  then  went  straight  to 
his  strong-room  to  think  over  possible  investments.  He  had 
thoughts  of  buying  consols.  Those  two  thousand  acres  of 
woodland  had  brought  him  in  six  hundred  thousand  francs ; 
then  there  was  the  money  from  the  sale  of  the  poplars,  there 
was  last  year's  income  from  various  sources,  and  this  year's 
savings,  to  say  nothing  of  the  bargain  which  he  had  just  con- 
cluded \  so  that,  leaving  those  two  hundred  thousand  francs 
out  of  the  question,  he  possessed  a  lump  sum  of  nine  hundred 
thousand  livres.  That  twenty  per  cent.,  to  be  made  in  so 
short  a  time  upon  his  outlay,  tempted  him.  Consols  stood  at 
seventy.  He  jotted  down  his  calculations  on  the  margin  of 
the  paper  that  Jiad  brought  the  news  of  his  brother's  death; 
the  moans  of  his  nephew  sounded  in  his  ears  the  while,  but 
he  did  not  hear  them  ;  he  went  on  with  his  work  until  Nanon 
thumped  vigorously  on  the  thick  wall  to  summon  her  master 
to  dinner.  On  the  last  step  of  the  staircase  beneath  the  arch- 
way, Grandet  paused  and  thought. 

"There  is  the  interest  beside  the  eight  per  cent. — I  will  do 
it.  Fifteen  hundred  thousand  francs  in  two  years'  time,  in 
gold  from  Paris  too,  full  weight.  Well,  what  has  become  of 
my  nephew?  " 

"  He  said  he  did  not  want  anything,"  replied  Nanon.  "  He 
ought  to  eat,  or  he  will  fall  ill." 

"  It  is  so  much  saved,"  was  her  master's  comment. 

"Lord  !  yes,"  she  replied. 

"  Pooh  !  he  will  not  keep  on  crying  for  ever.  Hunger  drives 
the  wolf  from  the  woods." 

Dinner  was  a  strangely  silent  meal.     When  the  cloth  had 
been  removed,  Mme.  Grandet  spoke  to  her  husband  : 
7 


9$  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

"We  ought  to  go  into  mourning,  dear." 

"  Really,  Mme.  Grandet,  you  must  be  hard  up  for  ways  of 
getting  rid  of  money.  Mourning  is  in  the  heart ;  it  is  not 
put  on  with  clothes." 

"But  for  a  brother  mourning  is  indispensable,  and  the 
Church  bids  us " 

"  Then  buy  mourning  out  of  your  six  louis ;  a  band  of  crape 
will  do  for  me ;  you  can  get  me  a  band  of  crape." 

Eugenie  said  nothing,  and  raised  her  eyes  to  heaven.  Her 
generous  instincts,  so  long  repressed  and  dormant,  had  been 
suddenly  awakened,  and  every  kindly  thought  had  been  harshly 
checked  as  it  had  arisen.  Outwardly  this  evening  passed  just 
as  thousands  of  others  had  passed  in  their  monotonous  lives, 
but  for  the  two  women  it  was  the  most  painful  that  they  had 
ever  spent.  Eugenie  sewed  without  raising  her  head  ;  she 
took  no  notice  of  the  workbox  which  Charles  had  looked  at 
so  scornfully  yesterday  evening.  Mme.  Grandet  knitted  away 
at  her  cuffs.  Grandet  sat  twirling  his  thumbs,  absorbed  in 
schemes  which  should  one  day  bring  about  results  that  would 
startle  Saumur.  Four  hours  went  by.  Nobody  dropped  in 
to  see  them.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  whole  town  was  ringing 
with  the  news  of  Grandet's  sharp  practice,  following  on  the 
news  of  his  brother's  failure  and  his  nephew's  arrival.  So  im- 
peratively did  Saumur  feel  the  need  to  thrash  these  matters 
thoroughly  out,  that  all  the  vine-growers,  great  or  small,  were 
assembled  beneath  the  des  Grassins'  roof,  and  frightful  were 
the  imprecations  which  were  launched  at  the  head  of  their  late 
mayor. 

Nanon  was  spinning ;  the  whirr  of  her  wheel  was  the  only 
sound  in  the  great  room  beneath  the  gray-painted  rafters. 

"Our  tongues  don't  go  very  fast,"  she  said,  showing  her 
large  teeth,  white  as  blanched  almonds. 

"There  is  no  call  for  them  to  go,"  answered  Grandet, 
roused  from  his  calculations. 

He  beheld  a  vision  of  the  future — he  saw  eight  millions  in 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  99 

three  years'  time — he  had  set  forth  on  a  long  voyage  upon  a 
golden  sea. 

"Let  us  go  to  bed.  I  will  go  up  and  wish  my  nephew  a 
good-night  from  you  all,  and  see  if  he  wants  anything." 

Mme.  Grandet  stayed  on  the  landing  outside  her  room-door 
to  hear  what  her  worthy  husband  might  say  to  Charles. 
Eugenie,  bolder  than  her  mother,  went  a  step  or  two  up  the 
second  flight. 

"Well,  nephew,  you  are  feeling  unhappy?  Yes,  cry,  it  is 
only  natural,  a  father  is  a  father.  But  we  must  bear  our 
troubles  patiently.  Whilst  you  have  been  crying,  I  have  been 
thinking  for  you;  I  am  a  kind  uncle,  you  see.  Come,  don't 
lose  heart.  Will  you  take  a  little  wine?  Wine  costs  nothing 
at  Saumur;  it  is  common  here;  they  offer  it  as  they  might 
offer  you  a  cup  of  tea  in  the  Indies.  But  you  are  all  in  the 
dark,"  Grandet  went  on.  "That's  bad,  that's  bad;  one 
ought  to  see  what  one  is  doing." 

Grandet  went  to  the  chimney-piece. 

"What!"  he  cried,  "a  wax-candle!  Where  the  devil 
have  they  fished  that  from?  I  believe  the  wenches  would  pull 
up  the  floor  of  my  house  to  cook  eggs  for  that  boy." 

Mother  and  daughter,  hearing  these  words,  fled   to  their 
rooms,  and  crept  into  their  beds  like  frightened   mice. 
,    "  Mme.  Grandet,  you  have  a  lot  of  money  somewhere,  it 
seems,"  said  the  vine-grower,  walking  into  his  wife's  rooms. 

"I  am  saying  my  prayers,  dear;  wait  a  little,"  faltered  the 
poor  mother. 

"  The  devil  take  your  pious  notions  !  "  growled  Grandet. 

Misers  have  no  belief  in  a  life  to  come,  the  present  is  all  in 
all  to  them.  But  if  this  thought  gives  an  insight  into  the 
miser's  springs  of  action,  it  possesses  a  wider  application,  it 
throws  a  pitiless  light  upon  our  own  era — for  money  is  the  one 
all-powerful  force,  ours  is  pre-eminently  the  epoch  when 
money  is  the  lawgiver,  socially  and  politically.  Books  and 
institutions,  theories  and  practice,  all  alike  combine  to  weaken 


100  EUG&NIE    GRAND ET. 

the  belief  in  a  future  life,  the  foundation  on  which  the  social 
edifice  has  been  slowly  reared  for  eighteen  hundred  years. 
The  grave  has  almost  lost  its  terrors  for  us.  That  future  which 
awaited  us  beyond  the  requiem  has  been  transported  into  the 
present,  and  one  hope  and  one  ambition  possesses  us  all — to 
pass  per  fas  et  nefas  into  this  earthly  paradise  of  luxury,  vanity, 
and  pleasure,  to  deaden  the  soul  and  mortify  the  body  for  a 
brief  possession  of  this  promised  land,  just  as  in  other  days 
men  were  found  willing  to  lay  down  their  lives  and  to  suffer 
martyrdom  for  the  hope  of  eternal  bliss.  This  thought  can 
be  read  at  large ;  it  is  stamped  upon  our  age,  which  asks  of 
the  voter — the  man  who  makes  the  laws — not  "What  do  you 
think?  "  but  "  What  can  you  pay?  "  And  what  will  become 
of  us  when  this  doctrine  has  been  handed  down  from  the 
bourgeoisie  to  the  people? 

"  Mme.  Grandet,  have  you  finished?"  asked  the  cooper. 

"  I  am  praying  for  you,  dear." 

"Very  well,  good-night.  To-morrow  morning  I  shall  have 
something  to  say  to  you." 

Poor  woman  !  she  betook  herself  to  sleep  like  a  school-boy 
who  has  not  learned  his  lessons,  and  sees  before  him  the  angry 
face  of  the  master  when  he  wakes.  Sheer  terror  led  her  to 
wrap  the  sheets  about  her  head  to  shut  out  all  sounds,  but 
just  at  that  moment  she  felt  a  kiss  on  her  forehead  ;  it  was 
Eugenie  who  had  slipped  into  the  room  in  the  darkness,  and 
stood  there  barefooted  in  her  nightdress. 

"Oh!  mother,  my  kind  mother,"  she  said,  "I  shall  tell 
him  to-morrow  morning  that  it  was  all  my  doing." 

"No,  don't;  if  you  do,  he  will  send  you  away  to  Noyers. 
Let  me  manage  it ;  he  will  not  eat  me,  after  all." 

"  Oh  !  mamma,  do  you  hear?  " 

"What?" 

"He  is  crying  still." 

"  Go  back  to  bed,  dear.  The  floor  is  damp,  it  will  strike 
cold  to  your  feet." 


eug£nie  GRANDET.  101 

So  ended  the  solemn  day,  which  had  brought  for  the  poor 
wealthy  heiress  a  lifelong  burden  of  sorrow;  never  again  would 
Eugenie  Grandet  sleep  as  soundly  or  as  lightly  as  heretofore. 
It  not  seldom  happens  that  at  some  time  in  their  lives  this  or 
that  human  being  will  act  literally  "unlike  himself/'  and  yet 
in  very  truth  in  accordance  with  his  nature.  Is  it  not  rather 
that  we  form  our  hasty  conclusions  of  him  without  the  aid  of 
such  light  as  psychology  affords,  without  attempting  to  trace 
the  mysterious  birth  and  growth  of  the  causes  which  led  to 
these  unforeseen  results?  And  this  passion,  which  had  its 
roots  in  the  depths  of  Eugenie's  nature,  should  perhaps  be 
studied  as  if  it  were  the  delicate  fibre  of  some  living  organism 
to  discover  the  secret  of  its  growth.  It  was  a  passion  that 
would  influence  her  whole  life,  so  that  one  day  it  would  be 
sneeringly  called  a  malady.  Plenty  of  people  would  prefer 
to  consider  a  catastrophe  improbable  rather  than  undertake 
the  task  of  tracing  the  sequence  of  the  events  that  led  to  it, 
to  discovering  how  the  links  of  the  chain  were  forged  one  by 
one  in  the  mind  of  the  actor.  In  this  case,  Eugenie's  past 
life  will  suffice  to  keen  observers  of  human  nature;  her  artless 
impulsiveness,  her  sudden  outburst  of  tenderness  will  be  no 
surprise  to  them.  Womanly  pity,  that  treacherous  feeling, 
had  filled  her  soul  but  the  more  completely  because  her  life 
had  been  so  uneventful  that  it  had  never  been  so  called  forth 
before. 

So  the  trouble  and  excitement  of  the  day  disturbed  her 
rest ;  she  woke  again  and  again  to  listen  for  any  sound  from 
her  cousin's  room,  thinking  that  she  still  heard  the  moans 
that  all  day  long  had  vibrated  through  her  heart.  Sometimes 
she  seemed  to  see  him  lying  up  there,  dying  of  grief;  some- 
times she  dreamed  that  he  was  being  starved  to  death.  To- 
wards morning  she  distinctly  heard  a  terrible  cry.  She  dressed 
herself  at  once,  and  in  the  dim  light  of  the  dawn  fled  noise- 
lessly up  the  stairs  to  her  cousin's  room.  The  door  stood 
open,  the  wax-candle  had  burned  itself  down  to  the  socket. 


102  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

Nature  had  asserted  herself;  Charles,  still  dressed,  was  sleep- 
ing in  the  armchair,  with  his  head  fallen  forward  on  the  bed ; 
he  had  been  dreaming  as  famished  people  dream.  Eugenie 
admired  the  fair  young  face.  It  was  flushed  and  tear-stained  ; 
the  eyelids  were  swollen  with  weeping ;  he  seemed  to  be  still 
crying  in  his  sleep,  and  Eugenie's  own  tears  fell  fast.  Some 
dim  feeling  that  his  cousin  was  present  awakened  Charles ;  he 
opened  his  eyes,  and  saw  her  distress. 

"Pardon  me,  cousin,"  he  said  dreamily.  Evidently  he 
had  lost  all  reckoning  of  time,  and  did  not  know  where  he 
was. 

"  There  are  hearts  here  that  feel  for  you,  cousin,  and  we 
thought  that  you  might  perhaps  want  something.  You  should 
go  to  bed;  you  will  tire  yourself  out  if  you  sleep  like  that." 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  that  is  true." 

"  Good-bye,"  she  said,  and  fled,  half  in  confusion,  half-glad 
that  she  had  come.  Innocence  alone  dares  to  be  thus  bold, 
and  virtue  armed  with  knowledge  weighs  its  actions  as  care- 
fully as  vice. 

Eugenie  had  not  trembled  in  her  cousin's  presence,  but 
when  she  reached  her  own  room  again  she  could  scarcely 
stand.  Her  ignorant  life  had  suddenly  come  to  an  end  ;  she 
remonstrated  with  herself,  and  blamed  herself  again  and 
again.  "  What  will  he  think  of  me  ?  He  will  believe  that  I 
love  him."  Yet  she  knew  that  this  was  exactly  what  she 
wished  him  to  believe.  Love  spoke  plainly  within  her,  know- 
ing by  instinct  how  love  calls  forth  love.  The  moment  when 
she  stole  into  her  cousin's  room  became  a  memorable  event 
in  the  girl's  lonely  life.  Are  there  not  thoughts  and  deeds 
which,  in  love,  are  for  some  souls  like  a  solemn  betrothal? 

An  hour  later  she  went  to  her  mother's  room,  to  help  her 
to  dress,  as  she  always  did.  Then  the  two  women  went  down- 
stairs and  took  their  places  by  the  window,  and  waited  for 
Grandet's  coming  in  the  anxiety  which  freezes  or  burns. 
Some  natures  cower,  and  others  grow  reckless,  when  a  scene 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  103 

or  painful  agitation  is  in  prospect ;  the  feeling  of  dreacf  is  so 
widely  felt  that  domestic  animals  will  cry  out  when  the 
slightest  pain  is  inflicted  on  them  as  a  punishment,  while  the 
same  creature  if  hurt  inadvertently  will  not  utter  a  sound. 

The  cooper  came  downstairs,  spoke  in  an  absent-minded 
way  to  nis  wife,  kissed  Eugenie,  and  sat  down  to  table.  He 
seemed  to  have  forgotten  last  night's  threats. 

."What  has  become  of   my  nephew?     The  child   is   not 
much  in  the  way." 

"  He  is  asleep,  sir,"  said  Nanon. 

"So  much  the  better,  he  won't  want  a  wax-candle  for 
that,"  said  Grandet  facetiously. 

His  extraordinary  mildness  and  satirical  humor  puzzled 
Mme.  Grandet ;  she  looked  earnestly  at  her  husband.  The 
good  man — here,  perhaps,  it  may  be  observed  that  in  Touraine, 
Anjou,  Poitou,  and  Brittany  the  designation  good  man  (bo?i- 
homme),  which-has  been  so  often  applied  to  Grandet,  conveys 
no  idea  of  merit ;  it  is  allowed  to  people  of  the  worst  temper 
as  well  as  to  good-natured  idiots,  and  is  applied  without  dis- 
tinction to  any  man-of  a  certain  age — the  good  man,  there- 
fore, took  up  his  hat  and  gloves  with  the  remark — 

"lam  going  to  have  a  look  round  in  the  market-place;  I 
want  to  meet  the  Cruchots." 

"Eugenie,  your  father  certainly  has  something  on  his 
mind." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Grandet  always  slept  but  little,  and 
was  wont  to  spend  half  the  night  in  revolving  and  maturing 
schemes,  a  process  by  which  his  views,  observations,  and  plans 
gained  amazingly  in  clearness  and  precision  ;  indeed,  this  was 
the  secret  of  that  constant  success  which  was  the  admiration 
of  Saumur.  Time  and  patience  combined  will  effect  most 
things,  and  the  man  who  accomplishes  much  is  the  man  with 
the  strong  will  who  can  wait.  The  miser's  life  is  a  constant 
exercise  of  every  human  faculty  in  the  service  of  a  personality. 
He  believes  in  self-love  and  interest,  and  in  no  other  motives 


104  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

of  action,  but  interest  is  in  some  sort  another  form  of  self- 
love,  to  wit,  a  practical  form,  dealing  with  the  tangible  and  the 
concrete,  and  both  forms  are  comprised  in  one  master-passion, 
for  self-love  and  interest  are  but  two  manifestations  of  egoism. 
Hence,  perhaps,  the  prodigious  interest  which  a  miser  excites 
when  cleverly  put  upon  the  stage.  What  man  is  utterly 
without  ambition  ?  And  what  social  ambition  can  be  obtained 
without  money  ?  Every  one  has  something  in  common  with 
this  being;  he  is  a  personification  of  humanity,  and  yet  is 
revolting  to  all  the  feelings  of  humanity. 

Grandet  really  "  had  something  on  his  mind,"  as  his  wife 
used  to  say.  In  Grandet,  as  in  every  miser,  there  was  a  keen 
relish  for  the  game,  a  constant  craving  to  play  men  off  one 
against  another  for  his  own  benefit,  to  mulct  them  of  their 
crowns  without  breaking  the  law.  And  did  not  every  victim 
who  fell  into  his  clutches  renew  his  sense  of  power,  his  just 
contempt  for  the  weak  of  the  earth  who  let  themselves  fall 
such  an  easy  prey  ?  Ah  !  who  has  understood  the  meaning 
of  the  lamb  that  lies  in  peace  at  the  feet  of  God,  that  most 
touching  symbol  of  meek  victims  who  are  doomed  to  suffer 
here  below,  and  of  the  future  that  awaits  them  hereafter,  of 
weakness  and  suffering  glorified  at  last  ?  But  here  on  earth 
it  is  quite  otherwise  ;  the  lamb  is  the  miser's  legitimate  prey, 
and  by  him  (when  it  is  fat  enough)  it  is  contemptuously 
penned,  killed,  cooked,  and  eaten.  On  money  and  on  this 
feeling  of  contemptuous  superiority,  we  may  say,  the  miser 
thrives. 

During  the  night  this  excellent  man's  ideas  had  taken  an 
entirely  new  turn  ;  hence  his  unusual  mildness.  He  had  been 
weaving  a  web  to  entangle  them  in  Paris ;  he  would  envelop 
them  in  its  toils,  they  should  be  as  clay  in  his  hands;  they 
should  hope  and  tremble,  come  and  go,  toil  and  sweat,  and 
all  for  his  amusement,  all  for  the  old  cooper  in  the  dingy 
room  at  the  head  of  the  worm-eaten  staircase  in  the  old  house 
at  Saumur ;  it  tickled  his  sense  of  humor. 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  105 

He  had  been  thinking  about  his  nephew.  He  wanted  to 
save  his  dead  brother's  name  from  dishonor  in  a  way  that 
should  not  cost  a  penny  either  to  his  nephew  or  to  himself. 
He  was  about  to  invest  his  money  for  three  years,  his  mind 
was  quite  at  leisure  from  his  own  affairs ;  he  really  needed 
some  outlet  for  his  malicious  energy,  and  here  was  an  oppor- 
tunity supplied  by  his  brother's  failure.  The  claws  were  idle, 
he  had  nothing  to  squeeze  between  them,  so  he  would  pound 
the  Parisians  for  Charles'  benefit,  and  exhibit  himself  in  the 
light  of  an  excellent  brother  at  a  very  cheap  rate.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  honor  of  the  family  name  counted  for  very 
little  with  him  in  this  matter ;  he  looked  at  it  from  the  purely 
impersonal  point  of  view  of  the  gambler,  who  likes  to  see  a 
game  well  played,  although  it  is  no  affair  of  his.  The 
Cruchots  were  necessary  to  him,  but  he  did  not  mean  to  go 
in  search  of  them  ;  they  should  come  to  him.  That  very 
evening  the  comedy  should  begin,  the  main  outlines  were 
decided  upon  already,  to-morrow  he  would  be  held  up  as  an 
object  of  admiration  „all  over  the  town,  and  his  generosity 
should  not  cost  him  a  farthing  ! 

-  Eugenie,  in  her  father's  absence,  was  free  to  busy  herself 
openly  for  her  cousin,  to  feel  the  pleasure  of  pouring  out  for 
him  in  many  ways  the  wealth  of  pity  that  filled  her  heart ;  for 
in  pity  alone  women  are  content  that  we  should  feel  their 
superiority,  and  the  sublimity  of  devotion  is  the  one  height 
which  they  can  pardon  us  for  leaving  to  them. 

Three  or  four  times  Eugenie  went  to  listen  to  her  cousin's 
breathing,  that  she  might  know  whether  he  was  awake  or  still 
sleeping  ;  and  when  she  was  sure  that  he  was  rising,  she 
turned  her  attention  to  his  breakfast,  and  cream,  coffee, 
fruit,  eggs,  plates,  and  glasses  were  all  in  turn  the  objects 
of  her  especial  care.  She  softly  climbed  the  rickety  stairs 
to  listen  again.  Was  he  dressing?  Was  he  still  sobbing? 
She  went  to  the  door  at  last  and  spoke—* 

fi  Cousin  !  " 


106  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

"  Yes,  cousin." 

"  Would  you  rather  have  breakfast  downstairs  or  up  here  in 
your  room?  " 

"  Whichever  you  please." 
'  ■  How  do  you  feel  ?  ' ' 
"lam  ashamed  to  say  that  I  am  hungry." 
This  talk  through  the  closed  door   was  like  an  episode  in  a 
romance  for  Eugenie. 

"  Very  well   then,  we  will  bring  your  breakfast  up  to  your 
room,  so  that  my  father  may  not  be  vexed  about  it." 

She  sprang  downstairs,  and  ran  into  the  kitchen  with  the 
swiftness  of  a  bird. 

"  Nanon,  just  go  and  set  his  room  straight." 
The  familiar  staircase  which  she  had  gone  up  and  down  so 
often,  and  which  echoed  with  every  sound,  seemed  no  longer 
old  in  Eugenie's  eyes;  it  was  radiant  with  light,  it  seemed  to 
speak  a  language  which  she  understood,  it  was  young  again  as 
she  herself  was,  young  like  the  love  in  her  heart.  And  the 
mother,  the  kind,  indulgent  mother,  was  ready  to  lend  herself 
to  her  daughter's  whims,  and  as  soon  as  Charles'  room  was 
ready  they  both  went  thither  to  sit  with  him.  Does  not 
Christian  charity  bid  us  comfort  the  mourner  ?  Little  relig- 
ious sophistries  were  not  wanting  by  which  the  women  justified 
themselves. 

Charles  Grandet  received  the  most  tender  and  affectionate 
care.  Such  delicate  tact  and  sweet  kindness  touched  him 
very  closely  in  his  desolation  ;  and  for  these  two  souls,  they 
found  a  moment's  freedom  from  the  restraint  under  which 
they  lived  ;  they  were  at  home  in  an  atmosphere  of  sorrow; 
they  could  give  him  the  quick  sympathy  of  fellowship  in  mis- 
fortune. Eugenie  could  avail  herself  of  the  privilege  of  rela- 
tionship to  set  his  linen  in  order,  and  to  arrange  the  trifles 
that  lay  on  the  dressing-table  ;  she  could  admire  the  wonder- 
ful knickknacks  at  her  leisure ;  all  the  paraphernalia  of 
luxury,  the  delicately-wrought  gold  and  silver  passed  through 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  107 

her  hands,  her  fingers  dwelt  lingeringly  on  them  under  the  pre- 
text of  looking  closely  at  the  workmanship. 

Charles  was  deeply  touched  by  the  generous  interest  which 
his  aunt  and  cousin  took  in  him.  He  knew  Parisian  life 
quite  sufficiently  to  know  that  under  these  circumstances  his 
old  acquaintances  and  friends  would  have  grown  cold  and 
distant  at  once.  But  his  trouble  had  brought  out  all  the 
peculiar  beauty  of  Eugenie's  character,  and  he  began  to 
admire  the  simplicity  of  manner  which  had  provoked  his 
amusement  but  yesterday.  So  when  Eugenie  waited  on  her 
cousin  with  such  frank  good-will,  taking  from  Nanon  the 
earthenware  bowl  full  of  coffee  and  cream  to  set  it  before  him 
herself,  the  Parisian's  eyes  filled  with  tears ;  and  when  he  met 
her  kind  glance,  he  impulsively  took  her  hand  in  his  and  fer- 
vently kissed  it. 

"Well,  what  is  the  matter  now?"  she  asked. 

"  Oh  !  they  are  tears  of  gratitude,"  he  answered. 

Eugenie  turned  hastily  away,  took  the  candles  from  the 
chimney-piece  and  held  them  out  to  Nanon. 

"  Here,"  she  said,  "  take  these  away." 

When  she  could  look  at  her  cousin  again,  the  flush  was  still 
on  her  face,  but  her  eyes  at  least  did  not  betray  her,  and  gave 
no  sign  of  the  excess  of  joy  that  flooded  her  heart ;  yet  the 
same  thought  was  dawning  in  both  their  souls,  and  could  be 
read  in  the  eyes  of  either,  and  they  knew  that  the  future  was 
theirs.  This  thrill  of  happiness  was  all  the  sweeter  to  Charles 
in  his  great  sorrow,  because  it  was  so  little  expected. 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door,  and  both  the  women  hur- 
ried down  to  their  places  by  the  window.  It  was  lucky  for 
them  that  their  flight  downstairs  was  sufficiently  precipitate, 
and  that  they  were  at  their  work  when  Grandet  came  in,  for 
if  he  had  met  them  beneath  the  archway,  all  his  suspicions 
would  be  aroused  at  once.  After  the  mid-day  meal,  which  he 
took  standing,  the  keeper,  who  had  not  yet  received  his 
promised  reward,   appeared  from  Froidfond,    bringing  with 


108  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

him  a  hare,  some  partridges  shot  in  the  park,  a  few  eels,  and 
a  couple  of  pike  sent  by  him  from  the  miller's. 

"  Aha !  so  here  is  old  Cornoiller;  you  come  just  when  you 
are  wanted,  like  salt  fish  in  Lent.     Is  all  that  fit  to  eat?  " 

"  Yes,  sir  ;  all  killed  the  day  before  yesterday." 

"  Come,  Nanon,  look  alive  !  Just  take  this,  it  will  do  for 
dinner  to-day;  the  two  Cruchots  are  coming." 

Nanon  opened  her  eyes  with  amazement,  and  stared  first  at 
one  and  then  at  another. 

"Oh!  indeed,"  she  said,  "and  where  are  the  herbs  and 
the  bacon  to  come  from  ?  " 

"Wife,"  said  Grandet,  "let  Nanon  have  six  francs,  and 
remind  me  to  go  down  into  the  cellar  to  look  out  a  bottle  of 
good  wine." 

"  Well,  then,  M.  Grandet,"  the  gamekeeper  began  (he 
wished  to  see  the  question  of  his  salary  properly  settled,  and 
was  duly  primed  with  a  speech),  "  M.  Grandet " 

"Tut,  tut,  tut,"  said  Grandet,  "I  know  what  you  are 
going  to  say ;  you  are  a  good  fellow,  we  will  see  about  that 
to-morrow,  I  am  very  busy  to-day.  Give  him  five  francs, 
wife,"  he  added,  looking  at  Mme.  Grandet,  and  with  that  he 
beat  a  retreat.  The  poor  woman  was  only  too  happy  to  pur- 
chase peace  at  the  price  of  eleven  francs.  She  knew  by  ex- 
perience that  Grandet  usually  kept  quiet  for  a  fortnight  after 
he  had  made  her  disburse  coin  by  coin  the  money  which  he 
had  given  her. 

"  There,  Cornoiller,"  she  said,  as  she  slipped  ten  francs  into 
his  hand;  "we  will  repay  you  for  your  services  one  of  these  days." 

Cornoiller  had  no  answer  ready,  so  he  went. 

"Madame,"  said  Nanon,  who  had  by  this  time  put  on 
her  black  bonnet  and  had  a  basket  on  her  arm,  "three  francs 
will  be  quite  enough ;  keep  the  rest.  I  shall  manage  just  as 
well  with  three." 

"  Let  us  have  a  good  dinner,  Nanon ;  my  cousin  is  coming 
downstairs,"  said  Eugenie. 


EUGEXIE    GRAXDET.  i09 

''There  is  something  very  extraordinary  going  on,  I  am 
sure/'  said  Mme.  Grandet.  "This  makes  the  third  time 
since  we  were  married  that  your  father  has  asked  any  one  here 
to  dinner." 

It  was  nearly  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon;  Eugenie  and 
her  mother  had  laid  the  cloth  and  set  the  table  for  six  persons, 
and  the  master  of  the  house  had  brought  up  two  or  three 
bottles  of  the  exquisite  wines,  which  are  jealously  hoarded  in 
the  cellars  of  the  vine-growing  district. 

Charles  came  into  the  dining-room  looking  white  and  sad ; 
there  was  a  pathetic  charm  about  his  gestures,  his  face,  his 
looks,  the  tones  of  his  voice ;  his  sorrow  had  given  him  the 
interesting  look  that  women  like  so  well,  and  Eugenie  only 
loved  him  the  more  because  his  features  were  worn  with  pain. 
Perhaps,  too,  this  trouble  had  brought  them  nearer  in  other 
ways.  Charles  was  no  longer  the  rich  and  handsome  young 
man  who  lived  in  a  sphere  far  beyond  her  ken  ;  he  was  a 
kinsman  in  deep  and  terrible  distress,  and  sorrow  is  a  great 
leveler.  Woman  has  this  in  common  with  the  angels — all 
suffering  creatures  are  under  her  protection. 

Charles  and  Eugenie  understood  each  other  without  a  word 
being  spoken  on  either  side.  The  poor  dandy  of  yesterday, 
fallen  from  his  high  estate,  to-day  was  an  orphan,  who  sat  in 
a  corner  of  the  room,  quiet,  composed,  and  proud ;  but  from 
time  to  time  he  met  his  cousin's  eyes,  her  kind  and  affection- 
ate glance  rested  on  him,  and  compelled  him  to  shake  off  his 
dark  and  sombre  broodings,  and  to  look  forward  with  her  to 
a  future  full  of  hope,  in  which  she  loved  to  think  that  she 
might  share. 

The  news  of  Grandet's  dinner-party  caused  even  greater 
excitement  in  Saumur  than  the  sale  of  his  vintage,  although 
this  latter  proceeding  had  been  a  crime  of  the  blackest  dye, 
an  act  of  high  treason  against  the  vine-growing  interest.  If 
Grandet's  banquet  to  the  Cruchots  has  been  prompted  by  the 
same  idea  which  on  a  memorable  occasion  cost  Alcibiades' 


110  EUGENIE   GRANDE T. 

dog  its  tail,  history  might  perhaps  have  heard  of  the  miser ; 
but  he  felt  himself  to  be  above  public  opinion  in  this  town 
which  he  exploited ;  he  held  Saumur  too  cheap. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  des  Grassins  heard  of  Guillaume 
Grandet's  violent  end  and  impending  bankruptcy.  They  de- 
termined to  pay  a  visit  to  their  client  that  evening,  to  condole 
with  him  in  his  affliction,  and  to  show  a  friendly  interest ; 
while  they  endeavored  to  discover  the  motives  which  could 
have  led  Grandet  to  invite  the  Cruchots  to  dinner  at  such  a 
time. 

Precisely  at  five  o'clock  President  C.  de  Bonfons  and  his 
uncle  the  notary  arrived,  dressed  up  to  the  nines  this  time. 
The  guests  seated  themselves  at  table,  and  began  by  attacking 
their  dinner  with  remarkably  good  appetites.  Grandet  was 
solemn,  Charles  was  silent,  Eugenie  was  dumb,  and  Mme. 
Grandet  said  no  more  than  usual ;  if  it  had  been  a  funeral 
repast,  it  could  not  well  have  been  less  lively.  When  they 
rose  from  the  table,  Charles  addressed  his  aunt  and  uncle — 

"  Will  you  permit  me  to  withdraw?  I  have  some  long  and 
difficult  letters  to  write." 

"  By  all  means,  nephew." 

When  Charles  had  left  the  room,  and  his  amiable  relative 
could  fairly  assume  that  he  was  out  of  earshot  and  deep  in  his 
correspondence,  Grandet  gave  his  wife  a  sinister  glance. 

"  Mme.  Grandet,  what  we  are  going  to  say  will  be  Greek 
to  you ;  it  is  half-past  seven  o'clock,  you  ought  to  be  off  to 
bed  by  this  time.  Good-night,  my  daughter."  He  kissed 
Eugenie,  and  mother  and  daughter  left  the  room. 

Then  the  drama  began.  Now,  if  ever  in  his  life,  Grandet 
displayed  all  the  shrewdness  which  he  had  acquired  in  the 
course  of  his  long  experience  of  men  and  business,  and  all  the 
cunning  which  had  gained  him  the  nickname  of  "old  fox" 
among  those  who  had  felt  his  teeth  a  little  too  sharply.  Had 
the  ambition  of  the  late  mayor  of  Saumur  soared  a  little  higher ; 
if  he  had  had  the  luck  to  rise  to  a  higher  social  sphere,  and 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  Ill 

destiny  had  sent  him  to  mingle  in  some  congress  in  which 
the  fate  of  nations  is  at  stake,  the  genius  which  he  was  now 
devoting  to  his  own  narrow  ends  would  doubtless  have  done 
France  glorious  service.  And  yet,  after  all,  the  probability  is 
that  once  away  from  Saumur  the  worthy  cooper  would  have 
cut  but  a  poor  figure,  and  that  minds,  like  certain  plants  and 
animals,  are  sterile  when  removed  to  a  distant  climate  and  an 
alien  soil. 

"  M-m-monsieur  le  P-p-pr6sident,  you  were  s-s-saying  that 
b-b-bankruptcy ' ' 

Here  the  trick  of  stammering  which  it  had  pleased  the  vine- 
grower  to  assume  so  long  ago  that  every  one  believed  it  to  be 
natural  to  him  (like  the  deafness  of  which  he  was  wont  to 
complain  in  rainy  weather),  grew  so  unbearably  tedious  for 
the  Cruchot  pair,  that  as  they  strove  to  catch  the  syllables, 
they  made  unconscious  grimaces,  moving  their  lips  as  if  they 
would  fain  finish  the  words  in  which  the  cooper  entangled 
both  himself  and  them  at  his  pleasure. 

And  here,  perhaps,  is  the  fitting  place  to  record  the  history 
of  Grandet's  deafness  and  the  impediment  in  his  speech.  No 
one  in  Anjou  had  better  hearing  or  could  speak  Angevin  French 
more  clearly  and  distinctly  than  the  wily  vine-grower — when 
he  chose.  Once  upon  a  time,  in  spite  of  all  his  shrewdness, 
a  Jew  had  gotten  the  better  of  him.  In  the  course  of  their  dis- 
cussion the  Israelite  had  applied  his  hand  to  his  ear,  in  the 
manner  of  an  ear-trumpet,  the  better  to  catch  what  was  said, 
and  had  gibbered  to  such  purpose  in  his  search  for  a  word, 
that  Grandet,  a  victim  to  his  own  humanity,  felt  constrained 
to  suggest  to  that  crafty  Hebrew  the  words  and  ideas  of  which 
the  Israelite  appeared  to  be  in  search,  to  finish  himself  the 
reasonings  of  the  said  Hebrew,  to  say  for  that  accursed  alien 
all  that  he  ought  to  have  said  for  himself,  till  Grandet  ended 
by  fairly  changing  places  with  the  Jew. 

From  this  curious  contest  of  wits  the  vine-grower  did  not 
emerge  triumphant ;  indeed,  for  the  first  and  last  time  in  his 


112  Eugenie  grandet. 

business  career  he  made  a  bad  bargain.  But  loser  though  he 
was  from  a  money  point  of  view,  he  had  received  a  great  prac- 
tical lesson,  and  later  on  he  reaped  the  fruits  of  it.  Where- 
fore in  the  end  he  blessed  the  Jew  who  had  shown  him  how 
to  wear  out  the  patience  of  an  opponent,  and  to  keep  him  so 
closely  employed  in  expressing  his  adversary's  ideas  that  he 
completely  lost  sight  of  his  own.  The  present  business  re- 
quired more  deafness,  more  stammering,  more  of  the  mazy  cir- 
cumlocutions in  which  Grandet  was  wont  to  involve  himself, 
than  any  previous  transaction  in  his  life ;  for,  in  the  first  place, 
he  wished  to  throw  the  responsibility  of  his  ideas  on  some  one 
else ;  some  one  else  was  to  suggest  his  own  schemes  to  him, 
while  he  was  to  keep  himself  to  himself,  and"  leave  every  one 
in  the  dark  as  to  his  real  intentions. 

"  Mon-sieur  de  B-B-Bonfons."  (This  was  the  second  time 
in  three  years  that  he  had  called  the  younger  Cruchot  "  M.  de 
Bonfons,"  and  the  president  might  well  consider  that  this  was 
almost  tantamount  to  being  acknowledged  as  the  crafty  cooper's 
son-in-law.) 

"You  were  s-s-s-saying  that  in  certain  cases,  p-p-p-pro- 
ceedings  in  b-b-bankruptcy  might  be  s-s-s-stopped  b-b-by " 

"At  the  instance  of  a  Tribunal  of  Commerce.  That  is 
done  everyday  of  the  year,"  said  M.  C.  de  Bonfons,  guessing, 
as  he  thought,  at  old  Grandet's  idea,  and  running  away  with 
it.  "Listen!"  he  said,  and  in  the  most  amiable  way  he 
prepared  to  explain  himself. 

"  I  am  1-listening,"  replied  the  older  man  meekly,  and  his 
face  assumed  a  demure  expression ;  he  looked  like  some 
small  boy  who  is  laughing  in  his  sleeve  at  the  schoolmaster 
while  appearing  to  pay  the  most  respectful  attention  to  every 
word. 

"When  anybody  who  is  in  a  large  way  of  business  and  is 
much  looked  up  to,  like  your  late  brother  in  Paris,  for 
instance " 

"  My  b-b-brother,  yes." 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  113 

"When  any  one  in  that  position  is  likely  to  find  himself 
insolvent " 

"  Ins-s-solvent,  do  they  call  it?" 

"Yes.  When  his  failure  is  imminent,  the  Tribunal  of 
Commerce,  to  which  he  is  amenable  (do  you  follow  me?)  has 
power  by  a  judgment  to  appoint  liquidators  to  wind  up  the 
business.  Liquidation  is  not  bankruptcy,  do  you  under- 
stand ?  It  is  a  disgraceful  thing  to  be  a  bankrupt,  but  a 
liquidation  reflects  no  discredit  on  a  man." 

"It  is  quite  a  d-d-d-different  thing,  if  only  it  d-d-does  not 
cost  any  more,"  said  Grandet. 

"  Yes.  But  a  liquidation  can  be  privately  arranged  without 
having  recourse  to  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce,"  said  the  presi- 
dent as  he  took  a  pinch  of  snuff.  "  How  is  a  man  declared 
bankrupt  !  " 

"Yes,  how?"  inquired  Grandet.  "I  have  n-n-never 
thought  about  it." 

"  In  the  first  place,  he  may  himself  file  a  petition  and  leave 
his  schedule  with  the  clerk  of  the  court,  the  debtor  himself 
draws  it  up  or  authorizes  some  one  else  to  do  so,  and  it  is 
duly  registered.  Or,  in  the  second  place,  his  creditors  may 
make  him  a  bankrupt.  But  supposing  the  debtor  does  not 
file  a  petition,  and  none  of  his  creditors  make  application  to 
the  court  for  a  judgment  declaring  him  bankrupt  ;  now  let  us 
see  what  happens  then !  " 

"Yes,  let  us  s-s-see." 

"  In  that  case,  the  family  of  the  deceased,  or  his  represen- 
tatives, or  his  residuary  legatee,  or  the  man  himself  (if  he  is 
not  dead),  or  his  friends  for  him  (if  he  has  absconded),  liqui- 
date his  affairs.  Now,  possibly,  you  may  intend  to  do  this  in 
your  brother's  case?  "   inquired  the  president. 

"Oh!  Grandet,"  exclaimed  the  notary,  "  that  would  be 
acting  very  handsomely.  We  in  the  provinces  have  our 
notions  of  honor.     If  you  saved  your   name  from  dishonor, 

for  it  is  your  name,  you  would  be " 

8 


114  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

"Sublime!  "   cried  the  president,  interrupting  his  uncle. 

"  Of  course,  my  b-b-brother's  n-n-name  was  Grandet, 
th-that  is  certain  sure,  I  d-d-don' t  deny  it,  and  anyhow  this 
1-1-1-1-liquidation  would  be  a  very  g-good  thing  for  my  n-n- 
nephew  in  every  way,  and  I  am  very  f-f-fond  of  him.  But  we 
shall  see.  I  know  n-n-nothing  of  those  sharpers  in  Paris,  and 
their  t-tricks.  And  here  am  I  at  S-Saumur,  you  see  !  There 
are  my  vine-cuttings,  m-my  d-d-draining;  in  sh-sh-short, 
there  are  my  own  af-f-fairs,  to  s-s-see  after.  /  have  n-n-never 
accepted  a  bill.  What  is  a  bill  ?  I  have  t-t-taken  many  a  one, 
b-b-but  I  have  n-n-never  put  my  n-n-name  to  a  piece  of 
p-paper.  You  t-t-take  'em  and  you  can  d-d-d-discount  'em, 
and  that  is  all  I  know.  I  have  heard  s-s-say  that  you  can 
b-b-b-buy  them " 

"Yes,"  assented  the  president.  "You  can  buy  bills  on 
the  market,  less  so  much  per  cent.     Do  you  understand?" 

Grandet  held  his  hand  to  his  ear,  and  the  president  repeated 
his  remark. 

"But  it  s-s-seems  there  are  t-t-two  s-sides  to  all  this?"  re- 
plied the  vine-grower.  "At  my  age,  I  know  n-n-nothing  about 
this  s-s-sort  of  thing.  I  must  st-top  here  to  1-look  after  the 
g-g-grapes,  the  vines  d-d-don' t  stand  still,  and  the  g-g-grapes 
have  to  p-pay  for  everything.  The  vintage  m-must  be  1-1- 
looked  after  before  anything  else.  Then  I  have  a  g-great 
d-d-deal  on  my  hands  at  Froidfond  that  I  can't  p-p-possibly 
1-1-1-leave  to  any  one  else.  I  don't  underst-t-tand  a  word  of  all 
this;  it  is  a  p-p-pretty  kettle  of  fish,  confound  it;  I  can't 
1-1-leave  home  to  s-see  after  it.  You  s-s-s-say  that  to  bring  about 
a  1-1-liquidation  I  ought  to  be  in  Paris.  Now  you  can't  be  in 
t-t-two  p-places  at  once  unless  you  are  a  b-b-bird." 

"/see  what  you  mean,"  cried  the  notary.  "  Well,  my  old 
friend,  you  have  friends,  friends  of  long  standing  ready  to  do 
a  great  deal  for  you." 

"Come,  now  !  "  said  the  vine-grower  to  himself,  "so  you 
are  making  up  your  minds,  are  you?  " 


EUG&NIE   GRANDET.  115 

"  And  if  some  one  were  to  go  to  Paris,  and  find  up  your 
brother  Guillaume's  largest  creditor,  and  say  to  him " 

"  Here,  just  1-1-listen  to  me  a  moment,"  the  cooper  struck 

in.     "Say  to  him what?     S-s-something  like   this:   '  M. 

Grandet  of  Saumur  th-this,  M.  Grandet  of  Saumur  th-th-that. 
He  1-1-loves  his  brother,  he  has  a  r-r-regard  for  his  n-nephew; 
Grandet  thinks  a  1-1-lot  of  his  f-family,  he  means  to  d-do  well 
by  them.  He  has  just  s-s-sold  his  vintage  uncommonly  well. 
Don't  drive  the  thing  into  b-b-b-bankruptcy,  call  a  meeting  of 
the  creditors,  and  ap-p-point  1-1-liquidators.  Then  s-see  what 
Grandet  will  do.  You  will  do  a  great  d-deal  b-b-better  for 
yourselves  by  coming  to  an  arrangement  than  by  1-1-letting 
the  1-1-lawyers  poke  their  noses  into  it.'  That  is  how  it  is, 
eh?" 

"  Quite  so  !  "  said  the  president. 

"  Because,  look  you  here,  Monsieur  de  Bon-Bon-Bonfons, 
you  must  1-1-look  before  you  1-l-l-leap.  And  you  can't  d-do 
more  than  you  can.  A  big  af-f-fair  like  this  wants  1-1-looking 
into,  or  you  may  ru-ru-ruin  yourself.   That  is  so,  isn't  it,  eh?" 

"  Certainly,"  said  the  president,  "  I  myself  am  of  the  opin- 
ion that  in  a  few  months'  time  you  could  buy  up  the  debts  for 
a  fixed  sum  and  pay  by  installments.  Aha  !  you  can  trail  a 
dog  a  long  way  with  a  bit  of  bacon.  When  a  man  has  not 
been  declared  bankrupt,  as  soon  as  the  bills  are  in  your  hands, 
you  will  be  as  white  as  snow." 

"As  s-s-s-snow?"  said  Grandet,  holding  his  hand  to  his 
ear.     "S-s-s-snow.     I  don't  underst-t-tand." 

"Why,  then,  just  listen  to  me  !  "  cried  the  president. 

"  I  am  1-1-listening " 

"  A  bill  of  exchange  is  a  commodity  subject  to  fluctuations 
in  value.  This  is  a  deduction  from  Jeremy  Bentham's  theory 
of  interest.  He  was  a  publicist  who  showed  conclusively  that 
the  prejudices  entertained  against  money-lenders  were  irra- 
tional." 

"  Bless  me  !  "  put  in  Grandet. 


116  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

41  And  seeing  that,  according  to  Bentham,  money  itself  is  a 
commodity,  and  that  which  money  represents  is  no  less  a 
commodity,"  the  president  went  on;  "and  since  it  is  ob- 
vious that  the  commodity  called  a  bill  of  exchange  is  subject 
to  the  same  laws  of  supply  and  demand  that  control  produc- 
tion of  all  kinds,  a  bill  of  exchange  bearing  this  or  that 
signature,  like  this  or  that  article  of  commerce,  is  scarce  or 
plentiful  in  the  market,  commands  a  high  premium  or  is  worth 

nothing   at    all.      Wherefore  the  decision  of  this  court 

There  !  how  stupid  I  am,  I  beg  your  pardon ;  I  mean  I  am 
of  the  opinion  that  you  could  easily  buy  up  your  brother's 
debts  for  twenty-five  per  cent  of  their  value." 

"You  m-m-m-mentioned  Je-je-je-jeremy  Ben " 

"Bentham,  an  Englishman." 

"  That  is  a  Jeremiah  who  will  save  us  many  lamentations  in 
business  matters,"  said  the  notary,  laughing. 

"The  English  s-s-sometimes  have  s-s-s-sensible  notions," 
said  Grandet.  "Then,  according  to  B-Bentham,  how  if  my 
b-b-brother's  b-bills  are  worth  n-n-n-nothing?     If  I  am  right, 

it    looks  to  me   as  if the  creditors  would n-no,  they 

wouldn't 1  underst-t-tand." 

"  Let  me  explain  all  this  to  you,"  said  the  president.  "  In 
law,  if  you  hold  all  the  outstanding  bills  of  the  firm  of 
Grandet,  your  brother,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  would  owe  no 
one  a  penny.     So  far,  so  good." 

"  Good,"  echoed  Grandet. 

"And  in  equity;  suppose  that  your  brother's  bills  were 
negotiated  upon  the  market  (negotiated,  do  you  understand 
the  meaning  of  that  term?)  at  a  loss  of  so  much  per  cent.; 
and  suppose  one  of  your  friends  happened  to  be  passing,  and 
bought  up  the  bills ;  there  would  have  been  no  physical  force 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  creditors,  they  gave  them  up  of  their 
own  free-will,  and  the  estate  of  the  late  Grandet  of  Paris 
would  be  clear  in  the  eye  of  the  law." 

"True,"  stuttered  the  cooper,  "  b-b-business  is  business. 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  117 

So  that  is  s-s-s-settled.  But,  for  all  that,  you  understand  that 
it  is  a  d-d-difficult  matter.  I  have  not  the  m-m-money,  nor 
have  I  the  t-t-t-time,  nor " 

"Yes,  yes;  you  cannot  be  at  the  trouble.  Well,  now,  I 
will  go  to  Paris  for  you  if  you  like  (you  must  stand  the  ex- 
penses of  the  journey,  that  is  a  mere  trifle).  I  will  see  the 
creditors,  and  talk  to  them,  and  put  them  off;  it  can  all  be 
arranged ;  you  will  be  prepared  to  add  something  to  the 
amount  realized  by  the  liquidation  so  as  to  get  the  bills  into 
your  hands." 

"We  shall  s-see  about  that;  I  cannot  and  will  not  under- 

t-t-take  anything  unless  I  know You  can't  d-d-do  more 

than  you  can,  you  know." 

"Quite  so,  quite  so." 

"And  I  am  quite  bewildered  with  all  these  head-splitting 
ideas  that  you  have  sp-prung  upon  me.  Th-this  is  the  f-f-f-first 
t-time  in  my  1-1-life  that  I  have  had  to  th-th-think  about 
such  th " 

"Yes,  yes,  you  are  not  a  consulting  barrister." 

"I  am  a  p-p-poor  vine-grower,  and  I  know  n-n-nothing 
about  what  you  have  just  t-t-t-told  me ;  I  ra-m-must  th-think  it 
all  out." 

"Well!  then,"  began  the  president,  as  if  he  meant  to 
reopen  the  discussion. 

"  Nephew  !  "  interrupted  the  notary  reproachfully. 

"  Well,  uncle  ?  "  answered  the  president. 

"  Let  M.  Grandet  explain  what  he  means  to  do.  It  is  a 
very  important  question,  and  you  are  to  receive  his  instructions. 
Our  dear  friend  might  now  very  pertinently  state " 

A  knock  at  the  door  announced  the  arrival  of  the  des  Gras- 
sins ;  their  coming  and  exchange  of  greetings  prevented 
Cruchot  senior  from  finishing  his  sentence.  Nor  was  he 
ill-pleased  with  this  diversion  ;  Grandet  was  looking  askance 
at  him  already,  and  there  was  that  about  the  wen  on  the 
cooper's   face   which   indicated   that   a  storm   was   brewing 


118  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

within.  And  on  sober  reflection  it  seemed  to  the  cautious 
notary  that  a  president  of  a  court  of  first  instance  was  not 
exactly  the  person  to  dispatch  to  Paris,  there  to  open  negotia- 
tions with  creditors,  and  to  lend  himself  to  a  more  than 
dubious  transaction  which,  however  you  looked  at  it,  hardly 
squared  with  notions  of  strict  honesty ;  and  not  only  so,  but 
he  had  particularly  noticed  that  M.  Grandet  had  shown  not 
the  slightest  inclination  to  disburse  anything  whatever,  and 
he  trembled  instinctively  at  the  thought  of  his  nephew  becom- 
ing involved  in  such  a  business.  He  took  advantage  of  the 
entrance  of  the  des  Grassins,  took  his  nephew  by  the  arm, 
and  drew  him  into  the  embrasure  of  the  window, 

"You  have  gone  quite  as  far  as  there  is  any  need,"  he  said, 
"that  is  quite  enough  of  such  zeal;  you  are  overreaching 
yourself  in  your  eagerness  to  marry  the  girl.  The  devil  ! 
You  should  not  rush  into  a  thing  open-mouthed,  like  a  crow  at 
a  walnut.  Leave  the  steering  of  the  ship  to  me  for  a  bit,  and 
just  shift  your  sails  according  to  the  wind.  Now,  is  it  a  part 
you  ought  to  play,  compromising  your  dignity  as  magistrate  in 

such  a " 

He  broke  off  suddenly,  for  he  heard  M.  des  Grassins  saying 
to  the  old  cooper,  as  he  held  out  his  hand — 

"  Grandet,  we  have  heard  of  the  dreadful  misfortunes 
which  have  befallen  your  family — the  ruin  of  the  firm  of 
Guillaume  Grandet  and  your  brother's  death  ;  we  have  come 
to  express  our  sympathy  and  to  offer  you  our  consolation  in 
this  sad  calamity." 

"  There  is  only  one  misfortune,"  the  notary  interrupted  at 
this  point,  "the  death  of  the  younger  M.  Grandet;  and  if 
he  had  thought  to  ask  his  brother  for  assistance,  he  would  not 
have  taken  his  own  life.  Our  old  friend  here,  who  is  a  man 
of  honor  to  his  finger-tips,  is  prepared  to  discharge  the  debts 
contracted  by  the  firm  of  Grandet  in  Paris.  In  order  to  spare 
our  friend  the  worry  of  what  is,  after  all,  a  piece  of  lawyer's 
business,  my  nephew  the  president  offers  to  start  immediately 


EUG&NIE    GRANDET.  119 

for  Paris,  so  as  to  arrange  with  the  creditors,  and  duly  satisfy 
their  claims." 

The  three  des  Grassins  were  thoroughly  taken  aback  by 
these  words ;  Grandet  appeared  to  acquiesce  in  what  had  been 
said,  for  he  was  pensively  stroking  his  chin.  On  their  way 
to  the  house  the  family  had  commented  very  freely  upon 
Grandet's  niggardliness,  and  indeed  had  almost  gone  so  far  as 
to  accuse  him  of  fratricide. 

"Ah!  just  what  I  expected!"  cried  the  banker,  looking 
g.t  his  wife.  "  What  was  I  saying  to  you  only  just  now  as  we 
came  along,  Mme.  des  Grassins  ?  Grandet,  I  said,  is  a  man 
who  will  never  swerve  a  hair's-breadth  from  the  strict  course 
of  honor;  he  will  not  endure  the  thought  of  the  slightest 
spot  on  his  name  !  Money  without  honor  is  a  disease.  Oh  ! 
we  have  a  keen  sense  of  honor  in  the  provinces !  This  is 
noble — really  noble  of  you,  Grandet.  I  am  an  old  soldier, 
and  I  do  not  mince  matters,  I  say  what  I  think  straight  out ; 
and  mille  tonnerres  /  (thousand  thunders)  this  is  sublime  !  " 

"  Then  the  s-s-sub-sublime  costs  a  great  d-d-deal/'  stuttered 
the  cooper,  as  the  banker  shook  him  warmly  by  the  hand. 

"  But  this,  my  good  Grandet  (no  offense  to  you,  M.  le 
Prdsident),  is  simply  a  matter  of  business,"  des  Grassins  went 
on.  "and  requires  an  experienced  man  of  business  to  deal 
with  it.  There  will  have  to  be  accounts  kept  of  sales  and 
outgoing  expenses;  you  ought  to  have  tables  of  interest  at 
your  finger-ends.  I  must  go  to  Paris  on  business  of  my  own, 
and  I  could  undertake " 

"  Then  we  must  s-s-see  about  it,  and  t-t-t-try  to  arrange 
between  us  to  p-p-provide  for  anything  that  m-may  t-t-turn 
up,  but  I  d-d-don't  want  to  be  d-d-drawn  into  anything  that  I 
would  rather  not  d-d-d-do,"  continued  Grandet,  "because, 
you  see,  M.  le  President  naturally  wants  me  to  pay  his 
expenses."  The  good  man  did  not  stammer  over  these 
last  words. 

"  Eh  ?  "  said  Mme.  des  Grassins.     "  Why,  it  is  a  pleasure 


120  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

to  stay  in  Paris  !     For  my  part,  I  should  be  glad  to  go  there 
at  my  own  expense." 

She  made  a  sign  to  her  husband,  urging  him  to  seize  this 
opportunity  of  discomfiting  their  enemies  and  cheat  them  of 
their  mission.  Then  she  flung  a  withering  glance  at  the  now 
crestfallen  and  miserable  Cruchots.  Grandet  seized  the  banker 
by  the  button-hole  and  drew  him  aside. 

"I  should  feel  far  more  confidence  in  you  than  in  the 
president,"  he  remarked;  "and  besides  that,"  he  added 
(and  the  wen  twitched  a  little),  "there  are  other  fish  to  fry. 
I  want  to  make  an  investment.  I  have  several  thousand  francs 
to  put  into  consols,  and  I  don't  mean  to  pay  more  than  eighty 
for  them.  Now,  from  all  I  can  hear,  that  machine  always 
runs  down  at  the  end  of  the  month.  You  know  all  about 
these  things,  I  expect?" 

"Pardieu! .  I  should  think  I  did.  Well,  then,  I  shall 
have  to  buy  several  thousand  livres  worth  of  consols  for 
you." 

"Just  by  way  of  a  beginning.  But  mum,  I  want  to  play  at 
this  game  without  letting  any  one  know  about  it.  You  will  buy 
them  for  me  at  the  end  of  the  month,  and  say  nothing  to  the 
Cruchots;  it  would  only  annoy  them.  Since  you  are  going 
to  Paris,  we  might  as  well  see  at  the  same  time  what  trumps 
are  for  my  poor  nephew's  sake." 

"  That  is  an  understood  thing.  I  shall  travel  post  to  Paris 
to-morrow,"  said  des  Grassins  aloud,  "and  I  will  come 
round  to  take  your  final  instructions  at — when  shall  we  say  ?  " 

"At  five  o'clock,  before  dinner,"  said  the  vine-grower, 
rubbing  his  hands. 

The  two  factions  for  a  little  while  remained  facing  each 
other.  Des  Grassins  broke  the  silence  again,  clapping  Grandet 
on  the  shoulder,  and  saying — 

"  It  is  a  fine  thing  to  have  a  good  uncle  like " 

"Yes,  yes,"  returned  Grandet,  falling  into  the  stammer 
again,  "  without  m-making  any  p-p-parade  about  it ;  I  am  a 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  121 

good  uncle  ',  I  1-1-loved  my  brother ;  I  will  give  p-p-p-proof 
of  it,  if-if-if  it  d-doesn't  cost " 

Luckily  the  banker  interrupted  him  at  this  point. 

"We  must  go,  Grandet.  If  I  am  to  set  out  sooner  than 
I  intended,  I  shall  have  to  see  after  some  business  at  once 
before  I  go." 

"Right,  quite  right.  I  myself,  in  connection  with  you 
know  what,  must  p-p-put  on  my  cons-s-sidering  cap,  as  P- 
President  Cruchot  s-s-says." 

"  Plague  take  it  !  I  am  no  longer  M.  de  Bonfons,"  thought 
the  magistrate  moodily,  and  hi?  face  fell ;  he  looked  like  a 
judge  who  is  bored  by  the  cause  before  him. 

The  heads  of  the  rival  clans  went  out  together.  Both  had 
completely  forgotten  Grandet's  treacherous  crime  of  that 
morning ;  his  disloyal  behavior  had  faded  from  their  minds. 
They  sounded  each  other,  but  to  no  purpose,  as  to  Grandet's 
real  intentions  (if  intentions  he  had)  in  this  new  turn  that 
matters  had  taken. 

"Are  you  coming  with  us  to  Mme.  Dorsonval's  ? "  des 
Grassins  asked  the  notary. 

"  We  are  going  there  later  on,"  replied  the-  president. 
"  With  my  uncle's  permission,  we  will  go  first  to  see  Mile,  de 
Gribeaucourt  \  I  promised  just  to  look  in  on  her  to  say  good- 
night." 

"  We  shall  meet  again,  then,"  smiled  Mme.  des  Grassins. 

But  when  the  des  Grassins  were  at  some  distance  from  the 
two  Cruchots,  Adolphe  said  to  his  father,  "They  are  in  a 
pretty  stew,  eh  ?  " 

"  Hush  !  "  returned  his  mother,  "  they  can  very  likely  hear 
what  we  are  saying,  and,  besides,  that  remark  of  yours  was  not 
in  good  taste  ;  it  sounds  like  one  of  your  law  school  phrases/' 

"  Well,  uncle  !  "  cried  the  magistrate,  when  he  saw  the  des 
Grassins  were  out  of  earshot,  "  I  began  by  being  President  de 
Bonfons  and  ended  as  plain  Cruchot." 

E 


122  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

"I  saw  myself  that  you  were  rather  put  out  about  it;  and 
the  des  Grassins  took  the  wind  out  of  our  sails.  How  stupid 
you  are,  for  all  your  sharpness  !  Let  them  set  sail,  on  the 
strength  of  a  '  We  shall  see  '  from  Grandet ;  be  easy,  my  boy, 
Eugenie  shall  marry  you  for  all  that." 

A  few  moments  later  and  the  news  of  Grandet's  magna- 
nimity was  set  circulating  in  three  houses  at  once  ;  the  whole 
town  talked  of  nothing  but  Grandet's  devotion  to  his  brother. 
The  sale  of  his  vintage  in  utter  disregard  of  the  agreement 
made  among  the  vine-growers  was  forgotten  ;  every  one  fell 
to  praising  his  scrupulous  integrity  and  to  lauding  his  gen- 
erosity, a  quality  which  no  one  had  suspected  him  of  possess- 
ing. There  is  that  in  the  French  character  which  is  readily 
excited  to  fury  or  to  passionate  enthusiasm  by  any  meteor  that 
appears  above  their  horizon,  that  is  captivated  by  the  bravery 
of  a  blatant  fact.  Can  it  be  that  collectively  men  have  no 
memories  ? 

As  soon  as  Grandet  had  bolted  the  house-door  he  called  to 
Nan on : 

"  Don't  go  to  bed,"  he  said,  "  and  don't  unchain  the  dog ; 
there  is  something  to  be  done,  and  we  must  do  it  together. 
Cornoiller  will  be  round  with  the  carriage  from  Froidfond  at 
eleven  o'clock.  You  must  sit  up  for  him,  and  let  him  in 
quietly ;  don't  let  him  rap  at  the  door,  and  tell  him  not  to 
make  a  noise.  You  get  into  trouble  with  the  police  if  you  raise 
a  racket  at  night.  And,  besides,  there  is  no  need  to  let  all 
the  quarter  know  that  I  am  going  out." 

Having  thus  delivered  himself,  Grandet  went  up  to  his  labo- 
ratory, and  Nanon  heard  him  stirring  about,  rummaging,  go- 
ing and  coming,  all  with  great  caution.  Clearly  he  had  no 
wish  to  waken  his  wife  or  daughter,  and  above  all  things  he 
desired  in  nowise  to  excite  any  suspicion  in  the  mind  of  his 
nephew ;  he  had  seen  that  a  light  was  burning  in  the  young 
man's  room,  and  had  cursed  his  relative  forthwith. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  Eugenie  heard  a  sound  like  the 


EUGENIE   GRAND ET.  123 

groan  of  a  dying  man ;  her  cousin  was  always  in  her  thoughts, 
and  for  her  the  dying  man  was  Charles.  How  white  and  de- 
spairing he  had  looked  when  he  wished  her  good-night ;  per- 
haps he  had  killed  himself.  She  hastily  wrapped  herself  in  her 
capuchine,  a  sort  of  long  cloak  with  a  hood  to  it,  and  deter- 
mined to  go  to  see  for  herself.  Some  rays  of  bright  light 
streaming  through  the  cracks  of  her  door  frightened  her  not  a 
little  at  first,  perhaps  the  house  was  on  fire ;  but  she  was  soon 
reassured.  She  could  hear  Nanon's  heavy  footsteps  outside, 
and  the  sounds  of  the  old  servant's  voice  mingled  with  the 
neighing  of  several  horses. 

"  Can  my  father  be  taking  Charles  away?"  she  asked  her- 
self, as  she  set  her  door  ajar,  cautiously  for  fear  the  hinges 
should  creak,  so  that  she  could  watch  all  that  was  going  on  in 
the  corridor. 

All  at  once  her  eyes  met  those  of  her  father,  and,  absent 
and  indifferent  as  they  looked,  a  cold  shudder  ran  through 
her.  The  cooper  and  Nanon  were  coming  along  carrying 
something  which  hung  by  a  chain  from  a  stout  cudgel,  one 
end  of  which  rested  on  the  right  shoulder  of  either  \  the  some- 
thing was  a  little  barrel  such  as  Grandet  sometimes  amused 
himself  by  making  in  the  bakehouse,  when  he  had  nothing 
better  to  do. 

"  Holy  Virgin!  how  heavy  it  is,  sir!"  said  Nanon  in  a 
whisper. 

"  What  a  pity  it  is  only  full  of  pence  !  "  replied  the  cooper. 
"Lookout !  or  you  will  knock  down  the  candlestick." 

The  scene  was  lighted  by  a  single  candle  set  between  two 
balusters. 

"  Cornoiller,"  said  Grandet  to  his  gamekeeper  inpartibus^ 
"  have  you  your  pistols  with  you?  " 

"  No,  sir.  Lord,  love  you  !  What  can  there  be  to  fear  for 
a  keg  of  coppers?" 

"Oh  !  nothing,  nothing,"  said  M.  Grandet. 
'  Besides,  we  shall  get  over  the  ground  quickly,"  the  keeper 


124  EUGENIE   GRAND ET, 

went  on ;  "  your  tenants  have  picked  out  their  best  horses  for 
you." 

"Well,  well.  You  did  not  let  them  know  where  I  was 
going?" 

"  I  did  not  know  that  myself." 

"  Right.     Is  the  carriage  strongly  built  ?  " 

"That's  all  right,  master.  Why,  what  is  the  weight  of  a 
few  paltry  barrels  like  those  of  yours?  It  would  carry  two  or 
three  thousand  like  them." 

"  Well,"  said  Nanon,  "  I  know  there's  pretty  nigh  eighteen 
hundredweight  there,  that  there  is  !  " 

"Will  you  hold  you  tongue,  Nanon!  You  tell  my  wife 
that  I  have  gone  into  the  country,  and  that  I  shall  be  back  to 
dinner.  Hurry  up,  Cornoiller  ;  we  must  be  in  Angers  before 
nine  o'clock." 

The  carriage  started.  Nanon  bolted  the  gateway,  let  the 
dog  loose,  and  lay  down  and  slept  in  spite  of  her  bruised 
shoulder ;  and  no  one  in  the  quarter  had  any  suspicion  of. 
Grandet's  journey  or  of  its  object.  The  worthy  man  was  a 
miracle  of  circumspection.  Nobody  ever  saw  a  penny  lying 
about  in  that  house  full  of  gold.  He  had  learned  that  morn- 
ing from  the  gossip  on  the  quay  that  some  vessels  were  being 
fitted  out  at  Nantes,  and  that  in  consequence  gold  was  so 
scarce  there  that  it  was  worth  double  its  ordinary  value,  and 
speculators  were  buying  it  in  Angers.  The  old  cooper,  by  the 
simple  device  of  borrowing  his  tenants'  horses,  was  prepared 
to  sell  his  gold  at  Angers,  receiving  in  return  an  order  upon 
the  Treasury  from  the  Receiver-General  for  the  sum  destined 
for  the  purchase  of  his  consols,,  and  an  addition  in  the  shape 
of  the  premium  paid  on  his  gold. 

"My  father  is  going  out,"  said  Eugenie  to  herself.  She 
had  heard  all  that  had  passed  from  the  head  of  the  staircase. 

Silence  reigned  once  more  in  the  house.  The  rattle  of  the 
wheels  in  the  streets  of  sleeping  Saumur  grew  more  and  more 
distant,  and  at  last  died  away.     Then  it  was  that  a  sound 


The  door    stood    ajar,-    she   thrust   it   open. 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  126 

seemed  to  reach  Eugenie's  heart  before  it  fell  on  her  ears,  a 
wailing  sound  that  rang  through  the  thin  walls  above — it  came 
from  her  cousin's  room.  There  was  a  thin  line  of  light, 
scarcely  wider  than  a  knife  edge,  beneath  his  door ;  the  rays 
slanted  through  the  darkness  and  left  a  bright  gleaming  bar 
along  the  balusters  of  the  crazy  staircase. 

"He  is  unhappy,"  she  said,  as  she  went  up  a  little  farther. 

A  second  moan  brought  her  to  the  landing  above.  The 
door  stood  ajar  ;  she  thrust  it  open.  Charles  was  sleeping  in 
the  rickety  old  armchair,  his  head  drooped  over  to  one  side, 
his  hand  hung  down  and  nearly  touched  the  floor,  the  pen  that 
he  had  let  fall  lay  beneath  his  fingers.  Lying  in  this  position, 
his  breath  came  in  quick,  sharp  jerks  that  startled  Eugenie. 
She  entered  hastily. 

"  He  must  be  very  tired,"  she  said  to  herself,  as  she  saw  a 
dozen  sealed  letters  lying  on  the  table.  She  read  the  addresses 
— MM.  Farry,  Breilman  and  Co.,  carriage  builders;  M. 
Buisson,  tailor ;  and  so  forth. 

"  Of  course,  he  has  been  settling  his  affairs,  so  that  he  may 
leave  France  as  soon  as  possible,"  she  thought. 

Her  eyes  fell  upon    two  unsealed  letters.     One  of   them 

began — "  My  dear  Annette  " She  felt  dazed,  and  could 

see  nothing  for  a  moment.  Her  heart  beat  fast,  her  feet  seemed 
glued  to  the  floor. 

"  His  dear  Annette  !     He  loves,  he  is  beloved  ! Then 

there  is    no    more  hope! What  does  he  say  to  her?" 

These  thoughts  flashed  through  her  heart  and  brain.  She 
read  the  words  everywhere :  on  the  walls,  on  the  very  floor, 
in  letters  of  fire. 

"Must  I  give  him  up  already?     No,  I  will  not  read  the 

letter.      I    ought  not  to    stay And    yet,   even  if  I  did 

read  it?" 

She  looked  at  Charles,  gently  took  his  head  in  her  hands, 
and  propped  it  against  the  back  of  the  chair.  He  submitted 
like  a   child,  who  even  while  he  is    sleeping  knows  that  it 


126  EUGENIE   GRANDE T. 

is  his  mother  who  is  bending  over  him,  and,  without  waking, 
feels  his  mother's  kisses.  Like  a  mother,  Eugenie  raised  the 
drooping  hand,  and,  like  a  mother,  laid  a  soft  kiss  on  his 
hair.  "Dear  Annette  /"  A  mocking  voice  shrieked  the 
words  in  her  ear. 

"I  know  that  perhaps  I  may  be  doing  wrong,  but  I  will 
read  that  letter,"  she  said. 

Eugenie  turned  her  eyes  away  ;  her  high  sense  of  honor 
reproached  her.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  there  was  a 
struggle  between  good  and  evil  in  her  soul.  Hitherto  she 
had  never  done  anything  for  which  she  needed  to  blush. 
Love  and  curiosity  silenced  her  scruples.  Her  heart  swelled 
higher  with  every  phrase  as  she  read ;  her  quickened  pulses 
seemed  to  send  a  sharp,  tingling  glow  through  her  veins,  and 
to  heighten  the  vivid  emotions  of  her  first  love. 

"My  dear  Annette:  —  Nothing  should  have  power 
to  separate  us  save  this  overwhelming  calamity  that  has  be- 
fallen me,  a  calamity  that  no  human  foresight  could  have 
predicted.  My  father  has  died  by  his  own  hand  ;  his  for- 
tune and  mine  are  both  irretrievably  lost.  I  am  left  an 
orphan  at  an  age  when,  with  the  kind  of  education  I 
have  received,  I  am  almost  a  child  ;  and,  nevertheless,  I 
must  now  endeavor  to  show  myself  a  man,  and  to  rise 
from  the  dark  depths  into  which  I  have  been  hurled.  I 
have  been  spending  part  of  my  time  to-night  in  revolving 
plans  for  my  future.  If  I  am  to  leave  France  as  an  honest 
man,  as  of  course  I  mean  to  do,  I  have  not  a  hundred 
francs  that  I  can  call  my  own  with  which  to  tempt  fate  in 
the  Indies  or  in  America.  Yes,  my  poor  Anna,  I  am  going 
in  quest  of  fortune  to  the  most  deadly  foreign  climes.  Be- 
neath such  skies,  they  say,  fortunes  are  rapidly  and  surely 
made.  As  for  living  on  in  Paris,  I  could  not  bring  myself 
to  do  it.  I  could  not  face  the  coldness,  the  contempt,  and 
the  affronts  that  a  ruined  man,  the  son  of  a  bankrupt,  is  sure 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.                               127 
to   receive.       Great    heaven  !     to    owe    two    millions  ! 


I  should  fall  in  a  duel  before  a  week  had  passed.  So  I 
shall  not  return  to  Paris.  Your  love — the  tenderest,  the 
most  devoted  love  that  ever  ennobled  the  heart  of  man — 
would  not  seek  to  draw  me  back.  Alas !  my  darling,  I 
have  not  money  enough  to  take  me  to  you,  that  I  might  give 
and  receive  one  last  kiss,  a  kiss  that  should  put  strength  into 
me  for  the  task  that  lies  before  me " 

"  Poor  Charles,  I  did  well  to  read  this.  I  have  money, 
and  he  shall  have  it,"  said  Eugenie.  She  went  on  with  the 
letter  when  her  tears  permitted  her  to  see. 

"  I  have  not  even  begun  to  think  of  the  hardships  of  pov- 
erty. Supposing  that  I  find  I  have  the  hundred  louis  to  pay 
for  my  passage  out,  I  have  not  a  sou  to  lay  out  on  a  trading 
venture.  Yet,  no  ;  I  shall  not  have  a  hundred  louis,  nor  yet 
a  hundred  sous ;  I  have  no  idea  whether  anything  will  be  left 
when  I  have  settled  all  my  debts  in  Paris.  If  there  is  nothing, 
I  shall  simply  go  to  Nantes  and  work  my  passage  out.  I  will 
begin  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder,  like  many  another  man  of 
energy  who  has  gone  out  to  the  Indies  as  a  penniless  youth, 
to  return  thence  a  rich  man.  This  morning  I  began  to  look 
my  future  steadily  in  the  face.  It  is  far  harder  for  me  than 
for  others ;  I  have  been  the  petted  child  of  a  mother  who 
idolized  me,  indulged  by  the  best  and  kindest  of  fathers ;  and 
at  my  very  entrance  into  the  world  I  met  with  the  love  of  an 
Anna.  As  yet  I  have  only  known  the  primrose  paths  of  life  ; 
such  happiness  could  not  last.  Yet,  dear  Annette,  I  have 
more  fortitude  than  could  be  looked  for  from  a  thoughtless 
youth ;  above  all,  from  a  young  man  thus  lapped  round  in 
happiness  from  the  cradle,  spoiled  and  flattered  by  the  most 
delightful   woman   in   Paris,    the   darling    of   fortune,   whose 

wishes  were  as  law  to  a  father  who Oh  !   my  father  !    He 

is  dead,  Annette  !     Well,  I  have  thought  seriously  over  my 


128  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

position,  and  I  have  likewise  thought  over  yours.  I  have 
grown  much  older  in  the  last  twenty-four  hours.  Dear  Anna, 
even  if,  to  keep  me  beside  you,  you  were  to  give  up  all  the 
luxuries  that  you  enjoy,  your  box  at  the  opera,  and  your  toilet, 
we  should  not  have  nearly  sufficient  for  the  necessary  expenses 
of  the  extravagant  life  that  I  am  accustomed  to  ;  and,  besides, 
I  could  not  think  of  allowing  you  to  make  such  sacrifices  for 
me.     To-day,  therefore,  we  part  forever." 

''Then  this  is  to  take  leave  of  her  !  Holy  Virgin  !  what 
happiness  !  " 

Eugenie  started  and  trembled  for  joy.  Charles  stirred  in 
his  chair,  and  Eugenie  felt  a  chill  of  dread.  Luckily,  how- 
ever, he  did  not  awaken.     She  went  on  reading. 

"When  shall  I  come  back?  I  cannot  tell.  Europeans 
grow  old  before  their  time  in  those  tropical  countries,  especi- 
ally Europeans  who  work  hard.  Let  us  look  forward  and 
try  to  see  ourselves  in  ten  years'  time.  In  ten  years  from  now 
your  little  girl  will  be  eighteen  years  old  ;  she  will  be  your  con- 
stant companion  ;  that  is,  she  will  be  a  spy  upon  you.  If  the 
world  will  judge  you  very  harshly,  your  daughter  will  probably 
judge  more  harshly  still ;  such  ingratitude  on  a  young  girl's 
part  is  common  enough,  and  we  know  how  the  world  regards 
these  things.  Let  us  take  warning  and  be  wise.  Only  keep 
the  memory  of  those  four  years  of  happiness  in  the  depths  of 
your  soul,  as  I  shall  keep  them  buried  in  mine ;  and  be  faith- 
ful, if  you  can,  to  your  poor  friend.  I  shall  not  be  too 
exacting,  dear  Annette ;  for,  as  you  can  see,  I  must  submit  to 
my  altered  lot ;  I  am  compelled  to  look  at  life  in  a  business- 
like way,  and  to  base  my  calculations  on  dull,  prosaic  fact. 
So  I  ought  to  think  of  marriage  as  a  necessary  step  in  my  new 
existence ;  and  I  will  confess  to  you  that  here,  in  my  uncle's 
house  in  Saumur,  there  is  a  cousin  whose  manners,  face, 
character,  and  heart  you  would  approve ;  and  who,  moreover, 
has,  it  appears " 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  129 

"  How  tired  he  must  have  been  to  break  off  like  this  when 
he  was  writing  to  her/11  said  Eugenie  to  herself,  as  the  letter 
ended  abruptly  in  .the  middle  of  a  sentence.  She  was  ready 
with  excuses  for  him. 

How  was  it  possible  that  an  inexperienced  girl  should  dis- 
cover the  coldness  and  selfishness  of  this  letter  ?  For  young 
girls,  religiously  brought  up  as  she  had  been,  are  innocent  and 
unsuspecting,  and  can  see  nothing  but  love  when  they  have 
set  foot  in  love's  enchanted  kingdom.  It  is  as  if  a  light  from 
heaven  shone  in  thejir  own  souls,  shedding  its  beams  upon  their 
path ;  their  lover  shines  transfigured  before  them  in  reflected 
glory,  radiant  with  fair  colors  from  love's  magic  fires,  and  en- 
dowed with  noble  thoughts  which  perhaps  in  truth  are  none 
of  his.  Women's  errors  spring,  for  the  most  part,  from  a 
belief  in  goodness,  and  a  confidence  in  truth.  In  Eugenie's 
heart  the  words,  "My  dear  Annette — my  beloved,"  echoed 
like  the  fairest  language  of  love;  they  stirred  her  soul  like 
organ  music — like  the  divine  notes  of  the  Venite  adoremus 
falling  upon  her  ears  in  childhood. 

Surely  the  tears,  not  dry  even  yet  upon  her  cousin's  eyelids, 
betokened  the  innate  nobility  of  nature  that  never  fails  to 
attract  a  young  girl.  How  could  she  know  that  Charles' 
love  and  grief  for  his  father,  albeit  genuine,  was  due  rather  to 
the  fact  that  his  father  had  loved  him  than  to  a  deeply-rooted 
affection  on  his  own  part  for  his  father  ?  M.  and  Mme.  Guil- 
laume  Grandet  had  indulged  their  son's  every  whim ;  every 
pleasure  that  wealth  could  bestow  had  been  his  ;  and  thus  it 
followed  that  he  had  never  been  tempted  to  make  the  hideous 
calculations  that  are  only  too  common  among  the  younger 
members  of  a  family  in  Paris,  when  they  see  around  them  all 
the  delights  of  Parisian  life,  and  reflect  with  disgust  that,  so 
long  as  their  parents  are  alive,  all  these  enjoyments  are  not  for 
them.  The  strange  result  of  the  father's  lavish  kindness  had 
been  a  strong  affection  on  the  part  of  his  son,  an  affection  un- 
alloyed by  any  after-thought.  But,  for  all  that,  Charles  was 
9 


130  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

a  thorough  child  of  Paris,  with  the  Parisian's  habit  of  mind  ; 
Annette  herself  had  impressed  upon  him  the  importance  of 
thinking  out  all  the  consequences  of  every  step;  he  was  not 
youthful,  despite  the  mask  of  youth. 

He  had  received  the  detestable  education  of  a  world  in 
which  more  crimes  (in  thought  and  word  at  least)  are  com- 
mitted in  one  evening  than  come  before  a  court  of  justice  in 
the  course  of  a  whole  session ;  a  world  in  which  great  ideas 
perish,  done  to  death  by  a  witticism,  and  where  it  is  reckoned 
a  weakness  not  to  see  things  as  they  are.  To  see  things  as 
they  are — that  means,  believe  in  nothing,  put  faith  in  nothing 
and  in  no  man,  for  there  is  no  such  thing  as  sincerity  in 
opinion  or  affection  ;  mistrust  events,  -for  even  events  at  times 
have  been  known  to  be  manufactured.  To  see  things  as  they 
are  you  must  weigh  your  friend's  purse  morning  by  morning ; 
you  must  know  by  instinct  the  right  moment  to  interfere  for 
your  own  profit  in  every  matter  that  turns  up ;  you  must  keep 
your  judgment  rigorously  suspended,  be  in  no  hurry  to  admire 
a  work  of  art  or  a  noble  deed,  and  give  every  one  credit  for 
interested  motives  on  every  possible  occasion. 

After  many  follies,  the  great  lady,  the  fair  Annette,  com- 
pelled Charles  to  think  seriously ;  she  talked  to  him  of  his 
future,  passing  a  fragrant  hand  through  his  hair,  and  imparted 
counsel  to  him  on  the  art  of  getting  on  in  the  world,  while 
she  twisted  a  stray  curl  about  her  fingers.  She  had  made  him 
effeminate,  and  now  she  set  herself  to  make  a  materialist  of 
him,  a  twofold  work  of  demoralization,  a  corruption  none  the 
less  deadly  because  it  never  offended  against  the  canons  of 
good  society,  good  manners,  and  good  taste. 

''You  are  a  simpleton,  Charles,"  she  would  say;  "I  see 
that  it  will  be  no  easy  task  to  teach  you  the  ways  of  the 
world.  You  were  very  naughty  about  M.  des  Lupeaulx.  Oh  ! 
he  is  not  over-fastidious,  I  grant  you,  but  you  should  wait 
until  he  falls  from  power,  and  then  you  may  despise  him  as 
much  as  you  like.     Do  you  know  what  Mme.  Campan  used  to 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  131 

say  to  us?  'My  children,  so  long  as  a  man  is  a  Minister, 
adore  him ;  if  he  falls,  help  to  drag  him  to  the  shambles. 
He  is  a  kind  of  deity  so  long  as  he  is  in  power,  but  after  he  is 
fallen  and  ruined  he  is  viler  than  Marat  himself,  for  he  is  still 
alive,  while  Marat  is  dead  and  out  of  sight.  Life  is  nothing 
but  a  series  of  combinations,  which  must  be  studied  and  fol- 
lowed very  carefully  if  a  good  position  is  to  be  successfully 
maintained.'  " 

Charles  had  no!  very  exalted  aims  ;  he  was  too  much  of  a 
worldling;  he  had  been  too  much  spoiled  by  his  father  and 
mother,  too  much  flattered  by  the  society  in  which  he  moved, 
to  be  stirred  by  any  lofty  enthusiasm.  In  the  clay  of  his 
nature  there  was  a  grain  of  gold,  due  to  his  mother's  teach- 
ing ;  but  it  had  been  passed  through  the  Parisian  draw-plate, 
and  beaten  out  into  a  thin  surface  gilding  which  must  soon  be 
worn  away  by  contact  with  the  world. 

At  this  time  Charles,  however,  was  only  one-and-twenty, 
and  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  freshness  of  heart  accompanies 
the  freshness  of  youth  ;  it  seems  so  unlikely  that  the  mind 
within  should  be  at  variance  with  the  young  face,  and  the 
young  voice,  and  the  candid  glance.  Even  the  hardest  judge, 
the  most  sceptical  attorney,  the  flintiest-hearted  money-lender 
will  hesitate  to  believe  that  a  wizened  heart  and  a  warped  and 
corrupted  nature  can  dwell  beneath  a  young  exterior,  when 
the  forehead  is  smooth  and  tears  come  so  readily  to  the  eyes. 
Hitherto  Charles  had  never  had  occasion  to  put  his  Parisian 
maxims  in  practice ;  his  character  had  not  been  tried,  and 
consequently  had  not  been  found  wanting  ;  but,  all  unknown 
to  him,  egoism  had  taken  deep  root  in  his  nature.  The  seeds 
of  this  baneful  political  economy  had  been  sown  in  his  heart ; 
it  was  only  a  question  of  time,  they  would  spring  up  and 
flower  so  soon  as  the  soil  was  stirred,  as  soon  as  he  ceased  to 
be  an  idle  spectator  and  became  an  actor  in  the  drama  of  real 
life. 

A   young  girl   is   nearly  always  ready  to   believe  unques- 


132  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

tioningly  in  the  promise  of  a  fair  exterior ;  but  even  if 
Eugenie  had  been  as  keenly  observant  and  as  cautious  as  girls 
in  the  provinces  sometimes  are,  how  could  she  have  brought 
herself  to  mistrust  her  cousin,  when  all  he  did  and  said,  and 
everything  about  him,  seemed  to  be  the  spontaneous  outcome 
of  a  noble  nature  ?  This  was  the  last  outburst  of  real  feeling, 
the  last  reproachful  sigh  of  conscience  in  Charles'  life ;  fate 
had  thrown  them  together  at  that  moment,  and,  unfortunately 
for  her,  all  her  sympathies  had  been  aroused  for  him. 

So  she  laid  down  the  letter  that  seemed  to  her  so  full  of 
love,  and  gave  herself  up  to  the  pleasure  of  watching  her 
sleeping  cousin ;  the  dreams  and  hopes  of  youth  seemed  to 
hover  over  his  face,  and  then  and  there  she  vowed  to  herself 
that  she  would  love  him  always.  She  glanced  over  the  other 
letter ;  there  could  be  no  harm  in  reading  it,  she  thought ; 
she  should  only  receive  fresh  proofs  of  the  noble  qualities 
with  which,  womanlike,  she  had  invested  the  man  whom  she 
had  idealized. 

"My  dear  Alphonse,"  so  it  began,  "by  the  time  this 
letter  is  in  your  hands  I  shall  have  no  friends  left ;  but  I  will 
confess  that  though  I  put  no  faith  in  the  worldly-minded 
people  who  use  the  word  so  freely,  I  have  no  doubts  of  your 
friendship  for  me.  So  I  am  commissioning  you  to  settle  some 
matters  of  business.  I  look  to  you  to  do  the  best  you  can 
for  me  in  this,  for  all  I  have  in  the  world  is  involved  in  it. 
By  this  time  you  must  know  how  I  am  situated.  I  have 
nothing,  and  have  made  up  my  mind  to  go  out  to  the  Indies. 
I  have  just  written  to  all  the  people  to  whom  any  money  is 
owing,  and  the  enclosed  list  is  as  accurate  as  I  can  make  it 
from  memory.  I  think  the  sale  of  my  books,  furniture, 
carriages,  horses,  and  so  forth  ought  to  bring  in  sufficient  to 
pay  my  debts.  I  only  mean  to  keep  back  a  few  trinkets  of 
little  value,  which  will  go  some  way  towards  a  trading  venture. 
I  will  send  you  a  power  of  attorney  in  due  form  for  this  sale. 


EUGENIE    GRANDETL^  133 

my  dear  Alphonse,  in  case  any  difficulty  should  arise.  You 
might  send  my  guns  and  everything  of  that  sort  to  me 
here.  And  you  must  take  '  Briton  f  no  one  would  ever  give 
me  anything  like  as  much  as  the  splendid  animal  is  worth ; 
I  would  rather  give  him  to  you,  you  must  regard  him  as  the 
mourning  ring  which  a  dying  man  leaves  in  his  will  to  his 
executor.  Fairy,  Breilman  and  Co.  have  been  building  a 
very  comfortable  traveling  carriage  for  me,  but  they  have  not 
sent  it  home  yet ;  get  them  to  keep  it  if  you  can,  and  if  they 
decline  to  have  it  left  on  their  hands,  make  the  best  arrange- 
ment you  can  for  me,  and  do  all  you  can  to  save  my  honor  in 
the  position  in  which  I  am  placed.  I  lost  six  louis  at  play 
to  that  fellow  from  the  British  Isles,  mind  that  he  is " 

"  Dear  cousin,"  murmured  Eugenie,  letting  the  sheet  fall, 
and,  seizing  one  of  the  lighted  candles,  she  hastened  on  tiptoe 
to  her  own  room. 

Once  there,  it  was  not  without  a  keen  feeling  of  pleasure 
that  she  opened  one  of  the  drawers  in  an  old  oak  chest — a 
most  beautiful  specimen  of  the  skill  of  the  craftsmen  of  the 
Renaissance,  you  could  still  make  out  the  half-effaced  royal 
salamander  upon  it.  From  this  drawer  she  took  a  large  red 
velvet  money-bag,  with  gold  tassels,  and  the  remains  of  a 
golden  fringe  about  it,  a  bit  of  faded  splendor  that  had  belonged 
to  her  grandmother.  In  the  pride  of  her  heart  she  felt  its 
weight,  and  joyously  set  to  work  to  reckon  up  the  value  of 
her  little  hoard,  sorting  out  the  different  coins.  Lnprimisy 
twenty  Portuguese  moidores,  as  new  and  fresh  as  when  they 
were  struck  in  1725,  in  the  reign  of  John  V.;  each  was  nom- 
inally worth  five  lisbonines,  or  a  hundred  and  sixty-five  francs, 
but  actually  they  were  worth  a  hundred  and  eighty  francs  (so  her 
father  used  to  tell  her),  a  fancy  value  on  account  of  the  rarity 
and  beauty  of  the  aforesaid  coins,  which  shone  like  the  sun. 
Item,  five  genovines,  rare  Genoese  coins  of  a  hundred  livres 
each,  their  current  value  was  perhaps  about  eighty  francs,  but 


134  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

collectors  would  give  a  hundred  for  them.  These  had  come 
to  her  from  old  M.  de  la  Bertelliere.  Item,  three  Spanish 
quadruples  of  the  time  of  Philip  V.,  bearing  the  date  1729. 
Mme.  Gentillet  had  given  them  to  her,  one  by  one,  always 
with  the  same  little  speech:  "  There's  a  little  yellow  bird, 
there's  a  buttercup  for  you,  worth  ninety-eight  livres  !  Take 
great  care  of  it,  darling;  it  will  be  the  flower  of  your  flock." 
Item  (and  those  were  the  coins  that  her  father  thought  most 
of,  for  the  gold  was  a  fraction  over  the  twenty-three  carats),  a 
hundred  Dutch  ducats,  struck  at  the  Hague  in  1756,  and  each 

worth  about  thirteen  francs.     Item,  a  great  curiosity ! a 

few  coins  dear  to  a  miser's  heart,  three  rupees  bearing  the  sign 
of  the  Balance,  and  five  with  the  sign  of  the  Virgin  stamped 
upon  them,  all  pure  gold  of  twenty-four  carats — the  magnifi- 
cent coins  of  the  Great  Mogul.  The  weight  of  metal  in 
them  alone  was  worth  thirty-seven  francs  forty  centimes,  but 
amateurs  who  love  to  finger  gold  would  give  fifty  francs  for 
such  coins  as  those.  Item,  the  double  napoleon  that  had 
been  given  to  her  the  day  before,  and  which  she  had  carelessly 
slipped  into  the  red  velvet  bag. 

There  were  new  gold-pieces  fresh  from  the  mint  among  her 
treasures,  real  works  of  art,  which  old  Grandet  liked  to  look 
at  from  time  to  time,  so  that  he  might  count  them  over  and 
tell  his  daughter  of  their  intrinsic  value,  expatiating  also  upon 
the  beauty  of  the  bordering,  the  sparkling  field,  the  ornate 
lettering  with  its  sharp,  clean,  flawless  outlines.  But  now  she 
gave  not  a  thought  to  their  beauty  and  rarity ;  her  father's 
mania  and  the  risks  she  ran  by  despoiling  herself  of  a  hoard 
so  precious  in  his  eyes  were  all  forgotten.  She  thought  of 
nothing  but  her  cousin,  and  managed  at  last  to  discover,  after 
many  mistakes  in  calculation,  that  she  was  the  owner  of  eigh- 
teen hundred  francs  all  told,  or  of  nearly  two  thousand  francs 
if  the  coins  were  sold  for  their  actual  value  as  curiosities. 

She  clapped  her  hands  in  exultation  at  the  sight  of  her 
riches,  like  a  child  who  is  compelled  to  find  some  outlet  for 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  135 

his  overflowing  glee  and  dances  for  joy.  Father  and  daughter 
had  both  counted  their  wealth  that  night ;  he  in  order  to  sell 
his  gold,  she  that  she  might  cast  it  abroad  on  the  waters  of 
love.  She  put  the  money  back  into  the  old  purse,  took  it  up, 
and  went  upstairs  with  it  without  a  moment's  hesitation.  Her 
cousin's  distress  was  the  one  thought  in  her  mind  ;  she  did  not 
even  remember  that  it  was  night,  conventionalities  were  utterly 
forgotten  ;  her  conscience  did  not  reproach  her,  she  was  strong 
in  her  happiness  and  her  love. 

As  she  stood  upon  the  threshold  with  the  candle  in  one  hand 
and  the  velvet  bag  in  the  other,  Charles  awoke,  saw  his  cousin, 
and  was  struck  dumb  with  astonishment.  Eugenie  came  for- 
ward, set  the  light  on  the  table,  and  said  with  an  unsteady  voice  : 

"  Cousin  Charles,  I  have  to  ask  your  forgiveness  for  some- 
thing I  have  done  ;  it  was  very  wrong,  but  if  you  will  over- 
look it,  God  will  forgive  me." 

"  What  can  it  be  ?  "  '  asked  Charles,  rubbing  his  eyes. 

"  I  have  been  reading  those  two  letters." 

Charles  reddened. 

"  Do  you  ask  how  I  came  to  do  it  ?  "  she  went  on,  "  and 
why  I  came  up  here?  Indeed,  I  do  not  know  now;  and  I 
am  almost  tempted  to  feel  glad  that  I  read  the  letters,  for 
through  reading  them  I  have  come  to  know  your  heart,  your 
soul,  and " 

"And  what  ?  "   asked  Charles. 

"And  your  plans — the  difficulty  that  you  are  in  for  want  of 
money " 


My  dear  cousin- 


"  Hush  !  hush  !  do  not  speak  so  loud,  do  not  let  us  wake 
anybody.  Here  are  the  savings  of  a  poor  girl  who  has  no 
wants,"  she  went  on,  opening  the  purse.  "You  must  take 
them,  Charles.  This  morning  I  did  not  know  what  money 
was  ;  you  have  taught  me  that  it  is  simply  a  means  to  an  end, 
that  is  all.  A  cousin  is  almost  a  brother;  surely  you  may 
borrow  from  your  sister." 


136  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

Eugenie,  almost  as  much  a  woman  as  a  girl,  had  not  fore- 
seen a  refusal,  but  her  cousin  was  silent. 

"  Why,  are  you  going  to  refuse  me?"  asked  Eugenie.  The 
silence  was  so  deep  that  the  beating  of  her  heart  was  audible. 
Her  pride  was  wounded  by  her  cousin's  hesitation,  but  the 
thought  of  his  dire  need  came  vividly  before  her,  and  she  fell 
on  her  knees. 

"  I  will  not  rise,"  she  said,  "  until  you  have  taken  that 

money.     Oh  !   cousin,  say  something,  for  pity's  sake  ! so 

that  I  may  know  that  you  respect  me,  that  you  are  generous, 
that " 

This  cry,  wrung  from  her  by  a  noble  despair,  brought  tears 
to  Charles'  eyes  ;  he  would  not  let  her  kneel,  she  felt  his  hot 
tears  on  her  hands,  and  sprang  to  her  purse,  which  she  emptied 
out  upon  the  table. 

"  Well,  then,  it  is  '  Yes,'  is  it  not  ?  "  she  said,  crying  for 
joy.  "  Do  not  scruple  to  take  it,  cousin  ;  you  will  be  quite 
rich.  That  gold  will  bring  you  luck,  you  know.  Some  day 
you  shall  pay  it  back  to  me,  or,  if  you  like,  we  will  be  part- 
ners; I  will  submit  to  any  conditions  that  you  may  impose. 
But  you  ought  not  to  make  so  much  of  this  gift." 

Charles  found  words  at  last. 

"  Yes,  Eugenie,  I  should  have  a  little  soul  indeed  if  I  would 
not  take  it.  But  nothing  for  nothing,  confidence  for  con- 
fidence." 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  she  asked,  startled. 

"Listen,  dear  cousin,  I  have  there " 

He  interrupted  himself  for  a  moment  to  show  her  a  square 
box  in  a  leather  case,  which  stood  on  the  chest  of  drawers. 

"  There  is  something  there  that  is  dearer  to  me  than  life. 
That  box  was  a  present  from  my  mother.  Since  this  morning 
I  have  thought  that  if  she  could  rise  from  her  tomb  she  her- 
self would  sell  the  gold  that  in  her  tenderness  she  lavished  on 
this  dressing-case,  but  I  cannot  do  it — it  would  seem  like 
sacrilege. 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  137 

Eugenie  grasped  her  cousin's  hand  tightly  in  hers  at  these 
last  words. 

"  No,"  he  went  on  after  a  brief  pause,  during  which  they 
looked  at  each  other  with  tearful  eyes,  "  I  do  not  want  to  pull 
it  to  pieces,  nor  to  risk  taking  it  with  me  on  my  wanderings. 
I  will  leave  it  in  your  keeping,  dear  Eugenie.  Never  did  one 
friend  confide  a  more  sacred  trust  to  another ;  but  you  shall 
judge  for  yourself." 

He  drew  the  box  from  its  leather  case,  opened  it,  and  dis- 
played before  his  cousin's  astonished  eyes  a  dressing-case 
resplendent  with  gold — the  curious  skill  of  the  craftsman  had 
only  added  to  the  value  of  the  metal. 

"All  that  you  are  admiring  is  nothing,"  he  said,  pressing 
the  spring  of  a  secret  drawer.  "There  is  something  which 
is  worth  more  than  all  the  world  to  me,"  he  added  sadly. 

He  took  out  two  portraits,  two  of  Mme.  de  Mirbel's  master- 
pieces, handsomely  set  in  pearls. 

"  How  lovely  she  is  !  Is  not  this  the  lady  to  whom  you 
were  writing?" 

"  No,"  he  said,  with  a  little  smile;  "  that  is  my  mother,  and 
this  is  my  father — your  aunt  and  uncle.  Eugenie,  I  could 
beg  and  pray  of  you  on  my  knees  to  keep  this  treasure  safe 
for  me.  If  I  should  die,  and  lose  your  little  fortune,  the  gold 
will  make  good  your  loss  ;  and  to  you  alone  can  I  leave  those 
two  portraits,  for  you  alone  are  worthy  to  take  charge  of  them, 
but  do  not  let  them  pass  into  any  other  hands,  rather  destroy 
them " 

Eugenie  was  silent. 

"Well,  '  it  is  Yes,  is  it  not?'  "  he  said,  and  there  was  a 
winning  charm  in  his  manner. 

As  the  last  words  were  spoken,  she  gave  him  for  the  first 
time  such  a  glance  as  a  loving  woman  can,  a  bright  glance 
that  reveals  a  depth  of  feeling  within  her.  He  took  her  hand 
and  kissed  it. 

"Angel  of  purity  !  what  is  money  henceforward  between 


138  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

us  two  ?     It  is  nothing,  is  it  not  ?  but  the  feeling,  which  alone 
gave  it  worth,  will  be  everything." 

"You  are  like  your  mother.  Was  her  voice  as  musical  as 
yours,  I  wonder?  " 

"  Oh  !    far  more  sweet " 

"  Yes,  for  you,"  she  said,  lowering  her  eyelids.  "  Come, 
Charles,  you  must  go  to  bed  ;  I  wish  it.  You  are  very  tired. 
Good-night." 

Her  cousin  had  caught  her  hand  in  both  of  his ;  she  drew 
it  gently  away,  and  went  down  to  her  room,  her  cousin  light- 
ing the  way.     In  the  doorway  of  her  room  they  both  paused. 

"  Oh  !  why  am  I  a  ruined  man  ?  "  he  said. 

"  Pshaw  !  my  father  is  rich,  I  believe,"  she  returned. 

"  My  poor  child,"  said  Charles,  as  he  set  one  foot  in  her 
room,  and  propped  himself  against  the  wall  by  the  doorway, 
"  if  your  father  had  been  rich,  he  would  not  have  left  my  father 
die,  and  you  would  not  be  lodged  in  such  a  poor  place  as 
this ;  he  would  live  altogether  in  quite  a  different  style." 

"But  he  has  Froidfond." 

"And  what  may  Froidfond  be  worth?" 

"  I  do  not  know  ;  but  there  is  Noyers  too." 

"  Some  miserable  farmhouse  !" 

"  He  has  vineyards  and  meadows " 

"  They  are  not  worth  talking  about,"  said  Charles  scorn- 
fully. "  If  your  father  had  even  twenty-four  thousand  livres 
a  year,  do  you  suppose  that  you  would  sleep  in  a  bare,  cold 
room  like  this?"  he  added,  as  he  made  a  step  forward  with 
his  left  foot.  "  That  is  where  my  treasures  will  be,"  he  went 
on,  nodding  towards  the  old  chest,  a  device  by  which  he  tried 
to  conceal  his  thoughts  from  her. 

"Go,"  she  said,  "and  try  to  sleep,"  and  she  barred  his 
entrance  into  an  untidy  room.  Charles  drew  back;  and  the 
cousins  bade  each  other  a  smiling  good-night. 

They  fell  asleep,  to  dream  the  same  dream  j  and  from  that 
time  forward  Charles  found  that  there  were  still  roses  to  be 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  139 

gathered  in  the  world  in  spite  of  his  mourning.  The  next 
morning  Mine.  Grandet  saw  her  daughter  walking  with  Charles 
before  breakfast.  He  was  still  sad  and  subdued  ;  how,  indeed, 
should  he  be  otherwise  than  sad  ?  He  had  been  brought  very 
low  in  his  distress ;  he  was  gradually  finding  out  how  deep 
the  abyss  was  into  which  he  had  fallen,  and  the  thought  of 
the  future  weighed  heavily  upon  him. 

""My  father  will  not  be  back  before  dinner,"  said  Eugenie, 
in  reply  to  an  anxious  look  in  her  mother's  eyes. 

The  tones  of  Eugenie's  voice  had  grown  strangely  sweet; 
it  was  easy  to  see  from  her  face  and  manner  that  the  cousins 
had  some  thought  in  common.  Their  souls  had  rushed  to- 
gether, while  perhaps  as  yet  they  scarcely  knew  the  power  or 
the  nature  of  this  force  which  was  bindingjhem  to  each  other. 

Charles  sat  in  the  dining-room  ;  no  one  intruded  upon  his 
sorrow.  Indeed,  the  three  women  had  plenty  to  do.  Grandet 
had  gone  without  any  warning,  and  his  work-people  were  at  a 
standstill.  The  slater  came,  the  plumber,  the  bricklayer,  and 
the  carpenter  followed  ;  so  did  laborers,  tenants,  and  vine- 
dressers, some  came  to  pay  their  dues,  and  others  to  receive 
them,  and  yet  others  to  make  bargains  for  the  repairs  which 
were  being  done.  Mine.  Grandet  and  Eugenie,  therefore,- 
were  continually  going  and  coming  ;  they  had  to  listen  to 
interminable  histories  from  laborers  and  country  people. 

Everything  that  came  into  the  house  Nanon  promptly  and 
securely  stowed  away  in  her  kitchen.  She  always  waited  for 
her  master's  instructions  as  to  what  should  be  kept,  and  what 
should  be  sold  in  the  market.  The  worthy  cooper,  like  many 
little  country  squires,  was  wont  to  drink  his  worst  wine,  and 
to  reserve  his  spoiled  or  wind-fallen  orchard  fruit  for  home 
consumption. 

Towards  five  o'clock  that  evening  Grandet  came  back  from 
Angers.  He  had  made  fourteen  thousand  francs  on  his  gold, 
and  carried  a  government  certificate  bearing  interest  until  the 
day  when  it  should  be  transferred  into  rentes.     He  had  left 


140  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

Cornoiller  also  in  Angers  to  look  after  the  horses,  which  had 
been  nearly  foundered  by  the  night  journey,  and  had  given 
instructions  to  bring  them  back  leisurely  after  they  had  had  a 
thorough  rest. 

"  I  have  been  to  Angers,  wife,"  he  said;  "and  I  am 
hungry." 

"Have  you  had  nothing  to  eat  since  yesterday?"  called 
Nanon  from  her  kitchen. 

"  Nothing  whatever,"  said  the  worthy  man. 
Nanon  brought  in  the  soup.     Des  Grassins  came  to  take  his 
client's  instructions  just  as  the  family  were  sitting  down   to 
dinner.     Grandet  had  not  so  much  as  seen  his  nephew  all  this 
time. 

"Go  on  with  your  dinner,  Grandet,"  said  the  banker. 
"  We  can  have  a  little  chat.  Have  you  heard  what  gold  is 
fetching  in  Angers,  and  that  people  from  Nantes  are  buying  it 
there?     I  am  going  to  send  some  over." 

"You  need  not  trouble  yourself,"  answered  his  worthy 
client;  "they  have  quite  enough  there  by  this  time.  I 
don't  like  you  to  lose  your  labor  when  I  can  prevent  it;  we 
are  too  good  friends  for  that." 

"  But  gold  is  at  thirteen  francs  fifty  centimes  premium." 
"  Say  was  at  a  premium." 
•'  How  the  deuce  did  you  get  to  know  that  ?  " 
"I  went  over  to  Angers  myself  last  night,"  Grandet  told 
him  in  a  low  voice. 

The  banker  started,  and  a  whispered  conversation  followed  ; 
both  des  Grassins  and  Grandet  looked  at  Charles  from  time 
to  time,  and  once  more  a  gesture  of  surprise  escaped  the 
banker,  doubtless  at  the  point  when  the  old  cooper  commis- 
sioned him  to  purchase  rentes  to  bring  in  a  hundred  thousand 
livres. 

"  M.  Grandet,"  said  des  Grassins,  addressing  Charles,  "I 
am  going  to  Paris,  and  if  there  is  anything  I  can  do  for 
you " 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  141 

"  Thank  you,  sir,  there  is  nothing,"  Charles  replied. 

"You  must  thank  him  more  heartily  than  that,  nephew. 
This  gentleman  is  going  to  wind  up  ytfUr  father's  business  and 
settle  with  his  creditors." 

"Then  is  there  any  hope  of  coming  to  an  arrangement  ?  " 
asked  Charles. 

"Why,  are  you  not  my  nephew?"  cried  the  cooper,  with 
a  fine  assumption  of  pride.  "  Our  honor  is  involved  ;  is  not 
your  name  Grandet?  " 

Charles  rose  from  his  chair,  impulsively  flung  his  arms  about 
his  uncle,  turned  pale,  and  left  the  room.  Eugenie  looked  at 
her  father  with  affection  and  pride  in  her  eyes. 

"Well,  let  us  say  good-bye,  my  good  friend,"  said 
Grandet.  "  I  am  very  much  at  your  service.  Try  to  get 
round  those  fellows  over  yonder." 

The  two  diplomatists  shook  hands,  and  the  cooper  went  to 
the  door  with  his  neighbor;  he  came  back  to  the  room  again 
when  he  had  closed  the  door  on  des  Grassins,  flung  himself 
down  in  his  easy-chair,  and  said  to  Nanon  :  "  Bring  me  some 
cordial." 

But  he  was  too  much  excited  to  keep  still ;  he  rose  and 
looked  at  old  M.  de  la  Bertelliere's  portrait,  and  began  to 
"dance  a  jig,"  in  Nanon's  phrase,  singing  to  himself — 

"  Once  in  the  Gardes  /ran Raises 
I  had  a  grandpapa " 

Nanon,  Mme,  Grandet,  and  Eugenie  all  looked  at  each 
other  in  silent  dismay.  The  vine-grower's  ecstasies  never 
boded  any  good. 

The  evening  was  soon  over.  Old  Grandet  went  off  early 
to  bed,  and  no  one  was  allowed  to  stay  up  after  that ;  when 
he  slept,  every  one  else  must  likewise  sleep,  much  as  in  Poland, 
in  the  days  of  Augustus  the  Strong,  whenever  the  king  drank 
all  his  subjects  were  loyally  tipsy.  Wherefore,  Nanon, 
Charles,  and  Eugenie  were  no  less  tired  than  the  master  of 


142  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

the  house;  and  as  for  Mme.  Grandet,  she  slept  or  woke,  ate 
or  drank,  as  her  husband  bade  her.  Yet  during  the  two 
hours  allotted  to  the  digestion  of  his  dinner  the  cooper  was 
more  facetious  than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  life  before,  and 
uttered  not  a  few  of  his  favorite  aphorisms ;  one  example  will 
serve  to  plumb  the  depths  of  the  cooper's  mind.  When  he 
had  finished  his  cordial,  he  looked  pensively  at  the  glass,  and 
thus  delivered  himself — 

"You  have  no  sooner  set  your  lips  to  a  glass  than  it  is 
empty  !  Such  is  life.  You  cannot  have  your  cake  and  eat  it 
too,  and  you  can't  turn  over  your  money  and  keep  it  in  your 
purse  ;  if  you  could  only  do  that,  life  would  be  too  glorious." 

He  was  not  only  jocose,  he  was  good-natured,  so  that  when 
Nanon  came  in  with  her  spinning-wheel — "You  must  be 
tired,"  he  said  ;   "let  the  hemp  alone." 

"And  if  I  did,"  the  servant  answered,"  why,  I  should  have 
to  sit  with  my  hands  before  me." 

"  Poor  Nanon  !   would  you  like  some  cordial?  " 

"  Cordial  ?  Oh  !  I  don't  say  no.  Madame  makes  it  much 
better  than  the  apothecaries  do.  The  stuff  they  sell  is  like 
physic." 

"  They  spoil  the  flavor  with  putting  too  much  sugar  in  it," 
said  the  good  man. 

The  next  morning,  at  the  eight  o'clock  breakfast,  the  party 
seemed,  for  the  first  time,  almost  like  one  family.  Mme. 
Grandet,  Eugenie,  and  Charles  had  been  drawn  together  by 
these  troubles,  and  Nanon  herself  unconsciously  felt  with 
them.  As  for  the  old  vine-grower,  he  scarcely  noticed  his 
nephew's  presence  in  the  house,  his  greed  for  gold  had  been 
satisfied,  and  he  was  very  shortly  to  be  quit  of  this  young 
sprig  by  the  cheap  and  easy  expedient  of  paying  his  nephew's 
traveling  expenses  as  far  as  Nantes. 

Charles  and  Eugenie  meanwhile  were  free  to  do  what  seemed 
to  them  good.     They  were  under  Mme.  Grandet's  eyes,  and 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  143 

Grandet  reposed  complete  faith  in  his  wife  in  all  matters  of 
conduct  and  religion.  Moreover,  he  had  other  things  to 
think  of;  his  meadows  were  to  be  drained,  and  a  row  of 
poplars  was  to  be  planted  along  the  Loire,  and  there  was  all 
the  ordinary  winter  work  at  Froidfond  and  elsewhere  ;  in  fact, 
he  was  exceedingly  busy. 

And  now  began  the  springtime  of  love  for  Eugenie. 
Since  that  hour  in  the  night  when  she  had  given  her  gold  to  he. 
cousin,  her  heart  had  followed  the  gift.  They  shared  a  secret 
between  them  ;  they  were  conscious  of  this  understanding 
whenever  they  looked  at  each  other  ;  and  this  knowledge,  that 
brought  them  more  and  more  closely  together,  drew  them  in  a 
manner  out  of  the  current  of  every-day  life.  And  did  not 
relationship  justify  a  certain  tenderness  in  the  voice  and 
kindness  in  the  eyes  ?  Eugenie  therefore  quietly  set  herselt 
to  work  to  make  her  cousin  forget  his  grief  in  the  childish  joys 
of  growing  love. 

For  the  beginnings  of  love  and  the  beginnings  of  life  are  not 
unlike.  Is  not  the  child  soothed  by  smiles  and  cradle-songs, 
and  fairy  tales  of  a  golden  future  that  lies  before  him  ? 
Above  him,  too,  the  bright  wings  of  hope  are  always  spread, 
and  does  he  not  shed  tears  of  joy  or  of  sorrow,  wax  petulant 
over  trifles  and  quarrelsome  over  the  pebbles  with  which  he 
builds  a  tottering  palace,  or  the  flowers  that  are  no  sooner 
gathered  than  forgotten  ?  Is  he  not  also  eager  to  outstrip 
time,  and  to  live  in  the  future  ?  Love  is  the  soul's  second 
transformation. 

Love  and  childhood  were  almost  the  same  thing  for  Charles 
and  Eugenie;  the  dawn  of  love  and  its  childish  beginnings 
were  all  the  sweeter  because  their  hearts  were  full  of  gloom ; 
and  this  love,  that  from  its  birth  had  been  enveloped  in  crape, 
was  in  keeping  with  their  homely  surroundings  in  the  melan- 
choly old  house.  As  the  cousins  interchanged  a  few  words 
by  the  well  in  the  silent  courtyard,  or  sat  out  in  the  little 
garden  towards  sunset  time,  wholly  absorbed  by  the  moment- 


144  EUGENIE   GRAND ET. 

ous  nothings  that  each  said  to  each,  or  wrapped  in  the 
stillness  that  always  brooded  over  the  space  between  the 
ramparts  and  the  house,  Charles  learned  to  think  of  love  as 
something  sacred.  Hitherto,  with  his  great  lady,  his  "dear 
Annette,"  he  had  experienced  little  but  its  perils  and  storms ; 
but  that  episode  in  Paris  was  over,  with  its  coquetry  and 
passion,  its  vanity  and  emptiness,  and  he  turned  to  this  love 
in  its  purity  and  truth. 

He  came  to  feel  a  certain  fondness  for  the  old  house,  and 
their  way  of  life  no  longer  seemed  absurd  to  him.  He  would 
come  downstairs  early  in  the  morning  so  as  to  snatch  a  few 
words  with  Eugenie  before  her  father  gave  out  the  stores; 
and  when  the  sound  of  Grandet's  heavy  footstep  echoed  on 
the  staircase,  he  fled  into  the  garden.  Even  Eugenie's  mother 
did  not  know  of  this  morning  tryst  of  theirs,  and  Nanon 
made  as  though  she  did  not  see  it ;  it  was  a  small  piece 
of  audacity  that  gave  the  keen  relish  of  a  stolen  pleasure  to 
their  innocent  love.  Then  when  breakfast  was  over,  and 
the  elder  Grandet  had  gone  to  see  after  his  business  and 
his  improvements,  Charles  sat  in  the  gray  parlor  between 
the  mother  and  daughter,  finding  a  pleasure  unknown  be- 
fore in  holding  skeins  of  thread  for  them  to  wind,  in  listening 
to  their  talk,  and  watching  them  sew.  There  was  something 
that  appealed  to  him  strongly  in  the  almost  monastic  sim- 
plicity of  the  life,  which  had  led  him  to  discover  the  nobleness 
of  the  natures  of  these  two  unworldly  women.  He  had  not 
believed  that  such  lives  as  these  were  possible  in  France ;  in 
Germany  he  admitted  that  old-world  manners  lingered  still, 
but  in  France  they  were  only  to  be  found  in  fiction  and  in 
Auguste  Lafontaine's  novels.  It  was  not  long  before  Eu- 
genie became  an  embodiment  of  his  ideal,  Goethe's  Mar- 
guerite without  her  error. 

Day  after  day,  in  short,  the  poor  girl  hung  on  his  words 
and  looks,  and  drifted  farther  along  the  stream  of  love.  He 
snatched  at  every  happiness  as  some  swimmer  might  catch  at 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  145 

an  overhanging  willow  branch,  that  so   he  might   reach  the 
bank  and  rest  there  for  a  little  while. 

Was  not  the  time  of  parting  very  near  now  ?  The  shadow 
of  that  parting  seemed  to  fall  across  the  brightest  hours  of 
those  days  that  fled  so  fast ;  and  not  one  of  them  went  by 
but  something  happened  to  remind  her  how  soon  it  would  be 
upon  them. 

For  instance,  three  days  after  des  Grassins  had  started  for 
Paris,  Grandet  had  taken  Charles  before  a  magistrate  with  the 
funereal  solemnity  with  which  such  acts  are  performed  by 
provincials,  and  in  the  presence  of  that  functionary  the  young 
man  had  had  to  sign  a  declaration  that  he  renounced  all  claim 
to  his  father's  property.  Dreadful  repudiation  !  An  impiety 
amounting  to  apostasy  !  He  went  to  M.  Cruchot  to  procure 
two  powers  of  attorney,  one  for  des  Grassins,  the  other  for  the 
friend  who  was  commissioned  to  sell  his  own  personal  effects. 
There  were  also  some  necessary  formalities  in  connection  with 
his  passport ;  and  finally,  on  the  arrival  of  the  plain  suit  of 
mourning  which  Charles  had  ordered  from  Paris,  he  sent  for 
a  clothier  in  Saumur,  and  disposed  of  his  now  useless  ward- 
robe.    This  transaction  was  peculiarly  pleasing  to  old  Grandet. 

"Ah  !  Now  you  look  like  a  man  who  is  ready  to  set  out, 
and  means  to  make  his  way  in  the  world,"  he  said,  as  he  saw 
his  nephew  in  a  plain,  black  overcoat  of  rough  cloth.  "  Good, 
very  good  !  " 

"  I  beg  you  to  believe,  sir,"  Charles  replied,  "  that  I  shall 
face  my  position  with  proper  spirit." 

"  What  does  this  mean  ?  "  asked  his  worthy  relative  ;  there 
was  an  eager  look  in  the  good  man's  eyes  at  the  sight  of  a 
handful  of  gold  which  Charles  held  out  to  him. 

"I  have  gathered  together  my  studs  and  rings  and  every- 
thing of  any  value  that  I  have ;  I  am  not  likely  to  want  them 
now ;  but  I  know  of  nobody  in  Saumur,  and  this  morning  I 
thought  I  would  ask  you " 

"  To  buy  it  ?  "  Grandet  broke  in  upon  him. 
10 


146  EUG&NIE   GRAND ET. 

"  No,  uncle,  to  give  me  the  name  of  some  honest  man 
who " 

"  Give  it  to  me,  nephew;  I  will  take  it  up  stairs  and  find 
•out  what  it  is  worth,  and  let  you  know  the  value  to  a 
centime.  Jeweler's  gold,"  he  commented,  after  an  examina- 
tion of  a  long  chain,  ''jeweler's  gold,  eighteen  to  nineteen 
carats,  I  should  say." 

The  worthy  soul  held  out  his  huge  hand  for  it,  and  carried 
off  the  whole  collection. 

"  Cousin  Eugenie,"  said  Charles,  "permit  me  to  offer  you 
these  two  clasps ;  you  might  use  them  to  fasten  ribbons  round 
your  wrists,  that  sort  of  bracelet  is  all  the  rage  just  now." 

"I  do  not  hesitate  to  take  it;  cousin,"  she  said,  with  a 
look  of  intelligence. 

"And,  aunt,  this  is  my  mother's  thimble  ;  I  have  treasured 
it  up  till  now  in  my  dressing-case,"  and  he  gave  a  pretty  gold 
thimble  to  Mme.  Grandet,  who  for  the  past  ten  years  had 
longed  for  one. 

"It  is  impossible  to  thank  you  in  words,  dear  nephew," 
said  the  old  mother,  as  her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  "  But 
morning  and  evening  I  shall  repeat  the  prayer  for  travelers, 
and  pray  most  fervently  for  you.  If  anything  should  happen 
to  me,  Eugenie  shall  take  care  of  it  for  you." 

"It  is  worth  nine  hundred  and  eighty-nine  francs  seventy- 
five  centimes,  nephew,"  said  Grandet,  as  he  came  in  at  the 
door.  "  But  to  save  you  the  trouble  of  selling  it,  I  will  let 
you  have  the  money  in  livres." 

This  expression  "in  livres"  means,  in  the  districts  along 
the  Loire,  that  a  crown  of  six  livres  is  to  be  considered  worth 
six  francs,  without  deduction. 

"I  did  not  venture  to  suggest  such  a  thing,"  Charles 
answered,  "but  I  shrank  from  hawking  my  trinkets  about  in 
the  town  where  you  are  living.  Dirty  linen  ought  not  to  be 
washed  in  public,  as  Napoleon  used  to  say.  Thank  you  for 
obliging  me." 


EUG&NIE    GRANDET.  147 

Grandet  scratched  his  ear,  and  there  was  a  moment's 
silence  in  the  room. 

"  And,  dear  uncle,"  Charles  went  on,  somewhat  nervously, 
and  as  though  he  feared  to  wound  his  uncle's  susceptibilities, 
"my  cousin  and  aunt  have  consented  to  receive  trifling 
mementoes  from  me ;  will  you  not  in  your  turn  accept  these 
sleeve-links,  which  are  useless  to  me  now  ;  they  may  perhaps 
recall  to  your  memory  a  poor  boy,  in  a  far-off  country,  whose 
thoughts  will  certainly  often  turn  to  those  who  are  all  that 
remain  to  him  now  of  his  family." 

"  Oh  !  my  boy,  my  boy,  you  must  not  strip  yourself  like 
that  for  us ' ' 

"  What  have  you  there,  wife?"  said  the  cooper,  turning 
eagerly  towards  her.  "Ah!  a  gold  thimble?  And  you, 
little  girl  ?  Diamond  clasps  ;  what  next  !  Come,  I  will 
accept  your  studs,  my  boy,"  he  continued,  squeezing  Charles' 

hand.      "But you  must  let  me  pay your yes,  your 

passage  out  to  the  Indies.  Yes,  I  mean  to  pay  your  passage. 
Besides,  my  boy,  when  I  estimated  your  jewelry  I  only  took 
it  at  its  value  as  metal,  you  see,  without  reckoning  the  work- 
manship, and  it  may  be  worth  a  trifle  more  on  that  account. 

So  that  is  settled.     I  will  pay  you  fifteen  hundred  francs 

in  livres;  Cruchot  will  lend  it  me,  for  I  have  not  a  brass 
farthing  in  the  house;  unless  Perrotet,  who  is  getting  behind- 
hand with  his  dues,  will  pay  me  in  coin.  There  !  there  !  I 
will  go  and  see  about  it,"  and  he  took  up  his  hat,  put  on  his 
gloves,  and  went  forthwith. 

"Then  you  are  going?  "  said  Eugdnie,  with  sad,  admiring 
eyes. 

"  I  cannot  help  myself,"  he  answered,  with  his  head  bent 
down. 

For  several  days  Charles  looked,  spoke,  and  behaved  like  a 
man  who  is  in  deep  trouble,  but  who  feels  the  weight  of  such 
heavy  obligations,  that  his  misfortunes  only  brace  him  for 
greater  effort.     He  had  ceased  to  pity  himself;  he  had  become 


148  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

a  man.  Never  had  Eugenie  augured  better  of  her  cousin's 
character  than  she  did  on  the  day  when  she  watched  him 
come  downstairs  in  his  plain,  black  mourning  suit,  which  set 
off  his  pale,  sad  face  to  such  advantage.  The  two  women 
had  also  gone  into  mourning,  and  went  with  Charles  to  the 
requiem  mass  celebrated  in  the  parish  church  for  the  soul  of  the 
late  Guillaume  Grandet. 

Charles  received  letters  from  Paris  as  they  took  the  mid- 
day meal ;  he  opened  and  read  them. 

"Well,  cousin, "  said  Eugenie,  in  a  low  voice,  "are  your 
affairs  going  on  satisfactorily  ?  " 

"Never  put  questions  of  that  sort,  my  girl,"  remarked 
Grandet.  "  I  never  talk  to  you  about  my  affairs,  and  why 
the  devil  should  you  meddle  in  your  cousin's?  Just  let  the 
boy  alone." 

"  Oh  !  my  dear  uncle,  I  have  no  secrets  of  any  sort,"  said 
Charles. 

"Tut,  tut,  tut.  You  will  find  out  that  you  must  bridle 
your  tongue  in  business,  nephew." 

When  the  two  lovers  were  alone  in  the  garden^  Charles 
drew  Eugenie  to  the  old  bench  "under  the  walnut  tree  where 
they  so  often  sat  of  late. 

"I  felt  sure  of  Alphonse,  and  I  was  right,"  he  said  ;  "he 
has  done  wonders,  and  has  settled  my  affairs  prudently  and 
loyally.  All  my  debts  in  Paris  are  paid,  my  furniture  sold 
well,  and  he  tells  me  that  he  has  acted  on  the  advice  of  an 
old  sea  captain  who  had  made  the  voyage  to  the  Indies,  and  has 
invested  the  surplus  money  in  ornaments  and  odds  and  ends 
for  which  there  is  a  great  demand  out  there.  He  has  sent  my 
packages  to  Nantes,  where  an  East  Indiaman  is  taking  freight 
for  Java,  and  so,  Eugenie,  in  five  days  we  must  bid  each  other 
farewell,  for  a  long  while  at  any  rate,  and  perhaps  forever. 
My  trading  venture  and  the  ten  thousand  francs  which  two  of 
my  friends  have  sent  me  are  a  very  poor  start ;  I  cannot 
expect  to  return  for  many  years.     Dear  cousin,  let  us  not  con- 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  149 

sider  ourselves  bound  in  any  way;  I  may  die,  and  very  likely 
some  good  opportunity  for  settling  yourself M 

"  You  love  me?"  she  asked. 

"Oh!  yes,  indeed,"  he  replied,  with  an  earnestness  of 
manner  that  betokened  a  like  earnestness  in  his  feelings. 

"Then  I  will  wait  for  you,  Charles.  Dim  !  my  father  is 
looking  out  of  his  window,"  she  exclaimed,  evading  her 
cousin,  who  had  drawn  closer  to  embrace  her. 

She  fled  to  the  archway ;  and  seeing  that  Charles  followed 
her  thither,  she  retreated  farther,  flung  back  the  folding  door 
at  the  foot  of  the  staircase,  and  with  no  very  clear  idea,  save 
that  of  flight,  she  rushed  towards  the  darkest  corner  of  the 
passage,  outside  Nanon's  sleeping  hole  ;  and  there  Charles, 
who  was  close  beside  her,  grasped  both  hands  in  his  and 
pressed  her  to  his  heart  ;  his  arms  went  round  her  waist, 
Eugenie  resisted  no  longer,  and  leaning  against  her  lover  she 
received  and  gave  the  purest,  sweetest,  and  most  perfect  of  all 
kisses. 

"  Dear  Eugenie,  a  cousin  is  better  than  a  brother ;  he  can 
marry  you,"  said  Charles. 

"  Amen,  so  be  it !  "  cried  Nanon,  opening  the  door  behind 
them,  and  emerging  from  her  den.  Her  voice  startled  the 
two  lovers,  who  fled  into  the  dining-room,  where  Eugenie 
took  up  her  sewing,  and  Charles  seized  on  Mine.  Grandet's 
prayer  book,  opened  it  at  the  litanies  of  the  Virgin,  and  began 
to  read  industriously. 

"Why  !  "  said  Nanon,  "  so  we  are  all  saying  our  prayers  !  " 

As  soon  as  Charles  fixed  the  day  for  his  departure,  Grandet 
bustled  about  and  affected  to  take  the  greatest  interest  in  the 
whole  matter.  He  was  liberal  with  advice,  and  with  anything 
else  that  cost  him  nothing,  first  seeking  out  a  packer  for 
Charles,  and  then,  saying  that  the  man  wanted  too  much  for 
his  cases,  setting  to  work  with  all  his  might  to  make  them 
himself,  using  odd  planks  for  the  purpose.     He  was  up  be- 


150  EUGENIE    GRANDE  T. 

times  every  morning  planing,  fitting,  nailing  deal  boards 
together,  squaring  and  shaping ;  and,  in  fact,  he  made  some 
strong  cases,  packed  all  Charles'  property  in  them,  and  under- 
took to  send  them  by  steamer  down  the  Loire  to  Nantes  in 
time  to  go  by  the  merchant  ship,  and  to  insure  them  during 
the  voyage. 

Since  that  kiss  given  and  taken  in  the  passage,  the  hours 
sped  with  terrible  rapidity  for  Eugenie.  At  times  she  thought 
of  following  her  cousin  ;  for  of  all  ties  that  bind  one  human  be- 
ing to  another,  this  passion  of  love  is  the  closest  and  strongest, 
and  those  who  know  this,  and  know  how  every  day  shortens 
love's  allotted  span,  and  how  not  time  alone  but  age  and 
mortal  sickness  and  all  the  untoward  accidents  of  life  combine 
to  menace  it — these  will  know  the  agony  that  Eugenie  suf- 
fered. She  shed  many  tears  as  she  walked  up  and  down  the 
little  garden.;  it  had  grown  so  narrow  for  her  now ;  the  court- 
yard, the  old  house,  and  the'  town  had  all  grown  narrow, 
and  her  thoughts  fared  forth  already  across  vast  spaces  of 
sea. 

It  was  the  day  before  the  day  of  departure.  That  morning, 
while  Grandet  and  Nanon  were  out  of  the  house,  the  precious 
casket  that  held  the  two  portraits  was  solemnly  deposited  in 
Eugenie's  chest,  beside  the  now  empty  velvet  bag  in  the  only 
drawer  that  could  be  locked,  an  installation  which  was  not 
affected  without  many  tears  and  kisses.  When  Eugenie  locked 
the  drawer  and  hid  the  key  in  her  bosom,  she  had  not  the 
courage  to  forbid  the  kiss  by  which  Charles  sealed  the  act. 

"The  key  shall  always  stay  there,  dear." 

"Ah  !  well,  my  heart  will  always  be  there  with  it  too." 

"  Oh  !  Charles,  you  should  not  say  that,"  she  said  a  little 
reproachfully. 

"  Are  we  not  married  ?  "  he  replied.  "  I  have  your  word  ; 
take  mine." 

"  Thine  forever  !  "  they  said  together,  and  repeated  it  a 
second  time.     No  holier  vow  was  ever  made  on  earth  ;   for 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  151 

Charles'  love  had  received  a  moment's  consecration  in  the 
presence  of  Eugenie's  simple  sincerity. 

It  was  a  melancholy  group  round  the  breakfast-table  next 
morning.  Even  Nanon  herself,  in  spite  of  Charles'  gift  of  a 
new  gown  and  a  gilt  cross,  had  a  tear  in  her  eye  ;  but  she  was 
free  to  express  her  feelings,  and  did  so. 

"  Oh  !  that  poor,  delicate  young  gentleman  who  is  going  to 
sea,"  was  the  burden  of  her  discourse. 

At  half-past  ten  the  whole  family  left  the  house  to  see  Charles 
start  for  Nantes  in  the  diligence.  Nanon  had  let  the  dog 
loose  and  locked  the  door,  and  meant  to  carry  Charles'  hand- 
bag. Every  shopkeeper  in  the  ancient  street  was  in  the  door- 
way to  watch  the  little  procession  pass.  M.  Cruchot  joined 
them  in  the  market-place. 

"  Eugenie,"  whispered  her  mother,  "  mind  you  do  not  cry !  " 

They  reached  the  gateway  of  the  inn,  and  there  Grandet 
kissed  Charles  on  both  cheeks.  "  Well  !  nephew,"  he  said, 
°  set  out  poor  and  come  back  rich  ;  you  leave  your  father's 
honor  in  safe-keeping.  I — Grandet — will  answer  to  you  for 
that  \  you  will  only  have  to  do  your  part " 

"Oh  !  uncle,  this  sweetens  the  bitterness  of  parting.  Is 
not  this  the  greatest  gift  you  could  possibly  give  me?" 

Charles  had  broken  in  upon  the  old  cooper's  remarks  before 
he  quite  understood  their  drift  ;  he  put  his  arms  round  his 
uncle's  neck,  and  let  fall  tears  of  gratitude  on  the  vine-grower's 
sunburned  cheeks ;  Eugenie  clasped  her  cousin's  hand  in  one 
of  hers  and  her  father's  in  the  other,  and  held  them  tightly. 
Only  the  notary  smiled  to  himself;  he  alone  understood  the 
worthy  man,  and  he  could  not  help  admiring  his  astute  cun- 
ning. The  four  Saumurois  and  a  little  group  of  onlookers  hung 
about  the  diligence  till  the  last  moment ;  and  looked  after  it 
until  it  disappeared  across  the  bridge,  and  the  sound  of  the 
wheels  grew  faint  and  distant. 

"A  good  riddance  !  "  said  the  cooper. 

Luckily,  no  one  but   Mi  Cruchot  heard  this  ejaculation ; 


152  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

Eugenie  and  her  mother  had  walked  along  the  quay  to  a  point 
of  view  whence  they  could  still  see  the  diligence,  and  stood 
there  waving  their  handkerchiefs  and  watching  Charles' 
answering  signal  till  he  was  out  of  sight ;  then  Eugenie 
turned. 

"  Oh  !  mother,  mother,  if  I  had  God's  power  for  one 
moment,"  she  said. 

To  save  farther  interruption  to  the  course  of  the  story,  it  is 
necessary  to  glance  a  little  ahead,  and  give  a  brief  account 
of  the  course  of  events  in  Paris,  of  Grandet's  calculations, 
and  the  action  taken  by  his  worthy  lieutenant  the  banker  in 
the  matter  of  Guillaume  Grandet's  affairs.  A  month  after 
des  Grassins  had  gone,  Grandet  received  a  certificate  for  a 
hundred  thousand  livres  per  annum  of  rentes,  purchased  at 
eighty  francs.  No  information  was  ever  forthcoming  as  to 
how  and  when  the  actual  coin  had  been  paid,  or  the  receipt 
taken,  which  in  due  course  had  been  exchanged  for  the  certi- 
ficate. The  inventory  and  statement  of  his  affairs  which  the 
miser  left  at  his  death  threw  no  light  upon  the  mystery,  and 
Cruchot  fancied  that  in  some  way  or  other  Nan  on  must  have 
been  the  unconscious  instrument  employed  ;  for  about  that 
time  the  faithful  serving-maid  was  away  from  home  for  four  or 
five  days,  ostensibly  to  see  after  matters  at  Froidfond,  as  if  its 
worthy  owner  were  likely  to  forget  anything  there  that  re- 
quired looking  after  !  As  for  Guillaume  Grandet's  creditors, 
everything  had  happened  as  the  cooper  had  intended  and 
foreseen. 

At  the  Bank  of  France  (as  everybody  knows)  they  keep 
accurate  lists  of  all  the  great  fortunes  in  Paris  or  in  the 
departments.  The  names  of  des  Grassins  and  of  Felix 
Grandet  of  Saumur  were  duly  to  be  found  inscribed  therein  ; 
indeed,  they  shone  conspicuous  there  as  well-known  names 
in  the  business  world,  as  men  who  were  not  only  financially 
sound,  but  owners  of  broad  acres  unencumbered  by  mortgages. 
And  now  it  was  said  that  des  Grassins  of  Saumur  had  come  to 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  153 

Paris  with  intent  to  call  a  meeting  of  the  creditors  of  the 
firm  of  Guillaume  Grandet ;  the  shade  of  the  wine  merchant 
was  to  be  spared  the  disgrace  of  protested  bills.  The  seals 
were  broken  in  the  presence  of  the  creditors,  and  the  family 
notary  proceeded  to  make  out  an  inventory  in  due  form. 

Before  very  long,  in  fact,  des  Grassins  called  a  meeting  of 
the  creditors,  who  with  one  voice  appointed  the  banker  of 
Saumur  as  trustee  conjointly  with  Francois  Keller,  the  head 
of  a  large  business  house,  and  one  of  the  principal  creditors, 
empowering  them  to  take  such  measures  as  they  thought  fit,  in 
order  to  save  the  family  name  (and  the  bills)  from  being  dis- 
honored. The  fact  that  des  Grassins  was  acting  as  his  agent 
produced  a  hopeful  tone  in  the  meeting,  and  things  went 
smoothly  from  the  first ;  the  banker  did  not  find  a  single  dis- 
sentient voice.  No  one  thought  of  passing  his  bill  to  his 
profit  and  loss  account,  and  each  one  said  to  himself — 

"  Grandet  of  Saumur  is  going  to  pay  !  " 

Six  months  went  by.  The  Parisian  merchants  had  with- 
drawn the  bills  from  circulation,  and  had  consigned  them  to 
the  depths  of  their  portfolios.  The  cooper  had  gained  his 
first  point.  Nine  months  after  the  first  meeting  the  two 
trustees  paid  the  creditors  a  dividend  of  forty-seven  per  cent. 
This  sum  had  been  raised  by  the  sale  of  the  late  Guillaume 
Grandet's  property,  goods,  chattels  and  general  effects ;  the 
most  scrupulous  integrity  characterized  these  proceedings; 
indeed,  the  whole  affair  was  conducted  with  the  most  con- 
scientious honesty,  and  the  delighted  creditors  fell  to  admiring 
Grandet's  wonderful,  indubitable,  and  high-minded  probity. 
When  these  praises  had  duly  circulated  for  a  sufficient  length 
of  time,  the  creditors  began  to  ask  themselves  when  the 
remainder  of  their  money  would  be  forthcoming,  and  bethought 
them  of  collectively  writing  a  letter  to  Grandet. 

"Here  we  are!  "  was  the  old  cooper's  comment,  as  he 
flung  the  letter  in  the  fire.  "  Patience,  patience,  my  dear 
friends."  ^ 


154  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

By  way  of  a  reply  to  the  propositions  contained  in  the  letter, 
Grandet  of  Saumur  required  them  to  deposit  with  a  notary 
all  the  bills  and  claims  against  the  estate  of  his  deceased 
brother,  accompanying  each  with  receipts  for  the  payments 
already  made.  The  accounts  were  to  be  audited,  and  the 
exact  condition  of  affairs  was  to  be  ascertained.  Innumer- 
able difficulties  were  cleared  away  by  this  notion  of  the  de- 
posit. 

A  creditor,  generally  speaking,  is  a  sort  of  maniac ;  there 
is  no  saying  what  a  creditor  will  do.  One  day  he  is  in  a 
hurry  to  bring  the  thing  to  an  end,  the  next  he  is  all  for  fire 
and  sword,  a  little  later  and  he  is  sweetness  and  benignity 
itself.  To-day,  very  probably,  his  wife  is  in  a  good  humor, 
his  youngest  hope  has  just  cut  a  tooth,  everything  is  going 
on  comfortably  at  home,  he  has  no  mind  to  abate  his  claims 
one  jot;  but  to-morrow  comes  and  it  rains,  and  he  cannot  go 
out ;  he  feels  low  in  his  mind,  and  agrees  hastily  to  anything 
and  everything  that  is  likely  to  settle  the  affair ;  the  next  morn- 
ing brings  counsel ;  he  requires  a  guarantee,  and  by  the  end  of 
the  month  he  talks  about  an  execution,  the  inhuman,  blood- 
thirsty wretch  !  The  creditor  is  not  unlike  that  common  or 
house  sparrow  on  whose  tail  small  children  are  encouraged  to 
try  to  put  a  grain  of  salt — a  pleasing  simile  which  a  creditor 
may  twist  to  his  own  uses,  and  apply  to  his  bills,  from  which 
he  fondly  hopes  to  derive  some  benefit  at  last.  Grandet  had 
observed  these  atmospheric  variations  among  creditors ;  and 
his  forecasts  in  the  present  case  were  correct,  his  brother's 
creditors  were  behaving  in  every  respect  exactly  as  he  wished. 
Some  waxed  wroth,  and  flatly  declined  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  deposit,  or  to  give  up  the  vouchers. 

"  Good  !  "  said  Grandet ;  "  that  is  all  right !  "  He  rubbed 
his  hands  as  he  read  the  letters  which  des  Grassins  wrote  to 
him  on  the  subject. 

Yet  others  refused  to  consent  to  the  aforesaid  deposit  unless 
their  position  was  clearly  defined  in  the  first  place;  it  was  to 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  155 

be  made  without  prejudice,  and  they  reserved  the  right  to 
declare  the  estate  bankrupt  should  they  deem  it  advisable. 
This  opened  a  fresh  correspondence,  and  occasioned  a  farther 
delay,  after  which  Grandet  finally  agreed  to  all  the  conditions, 
and  as  a  consequence  the  more  tractable  creditors  brought 
the  recalcitrant  to  hear  reason,  and  the  deposit  was  made,  not, 
however,  without  some  grumbling. 

''That  old  fellow  is  laughing  in  his  sleeve  at  you  and  us 
too,"  said  they  to  des  Grassins. 

Twenty-three  months  after  Guillaume  Grandet's  death,  many 
of  the  merchants  had  forgotten  all  about  their  claims  in  the 
course  of  events  in  a  business  life  in  Paris,  or  they  only 
thought  of  them  to  say  to  themselves — 

"  It  begins  to  look  as  though  the  forty-seven  per  cent,  is 
about  all  I  shall  get  out  of  that  business." 

The  cooper  had  reckoned  on  the  aid  of  time,  who,  as  he 
was  wont  to  say,  is  a  good  fellow.  By  the  end  of  the  third 
year  des  Grassins  wrote  to  Grandet  saying  that  he  had  in- 
duced most  of  the  creditors  to  give  up  their  bills,  and  that  the 
amount  now  owing  was  only  about  ten  per  cent,  of  the  out- 
standing two  million  four  hundred  thousand  francs.  Grandet 
replied  that  there  yet  remained  the  notary  and  the  stockbroker, 
whose  failures  had  been  the  death  of  his  brother ;  they  were 
still  alive.  They  might  be  solvent  again  by  this  time,  and 
proceedings  ought  to  be  taken  against  them  ;  something  might 
be  recovered  in  this  way  which  would  still  farther  reduce  the 
sum-total  of  the  deficit. 

When  the  fourth  year  drew  to  a  close  the  deficit  had  been 
duly  brought  down  to  the  sum  of  twelve  hundred  thousand 
francs;  the  limit  appeared  to  have  been  readied.  Six  months 
farther  were  spent  in  parleyings  between  the  trustees  and  the 
creditors,  and  between  Grandet  and  the  trustees.  In  short, 
strong  pressure  being  brought  to  bear  upon  Grandet  of  Saumur, 
he  announced,  somewhere  about  the  ninth  month  of  the  same 
year,  that  his  nephew,  who  had  made  a  fortune  in  the  East 


156  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

Indies,  had  signified  his  intention  of  settling  in  full  all  claims  on 
his  father's  estate  ;  and  that  meantime  he  could  not  take  it  upon 
himself  to  act,  nor  to  defraud  the  creditors  by  winding  up  the 
affair  before  he  had  consulted  his  nephew ;  he  added  that  he 
had  written  to  him,  and  was  now  awaiting  an  answer. 

The  middle  of  the  fifth  year  had  been  reached,  and  still 
the  creditors  were  held  in  check  by  the  magic  words  in  full, 
let  fall  judiciously  from  time  to  time  by  the  sublime  cooper, 
who  was  laughing  at  them  in  his  sleeve  ;  "  those  Parisians," 
he  would  say  to  himself,  with  a  mild  oath,  and  a  cunning 
smile  would  steal  across  his  features. 

In  fact,  a  martyrdom  unknown  to  the  calendars  of  com- 
merce was  in  store  for  the  creditors.  When  next  they 
appear  in  the  course  of  this  story,  they  will  be  found  in 
exactly  the  same  position  that  they  were  in  now  when 
Grandet  had  done  with  them.  Consols  went  up  to  a  hundred 
and  fifteen,  old  Grandet  sold  out,  and  received  from  Paris 
about  two  million  four  hundred  thousand  francs  in  gold, 
which  went  into  his  wooden  kegs  to  keep  company  with  the 
six  hundred  thousand  francs  of  interest  which  his  investment 
had  brought  in. 

Des  Grassins  stayed  on  in  Paris,  and  for  the  following 
reasons.  In  the  first  place,  he  had  been  appointed  a  deputy; 
and  in  the  second,  he,  the  father  of  a  family,  bored  by  the 
exceeding  dulness  of  existence  in  Saumur,  was  smitten  with  the 
charms  of  Mile.  Florine,  one  of  the  prettiest  actresses  of  the 
Theatre  de  Madame,  and  there  was  a  recrudescence  of  the 
quartermaster  in  the  banker.  It  is  useless  to  discuss  his  con- 
duct ;  at  Saumur  it  was  pronounced  to  be  profoundly  immoral. 
It  was  very  lucky  for  his  wife  that  she  had  brains  enough  to 
carry  on  the  concern  at  Saumur  in  her  own  name,  and  could 
extricate  the  remains  of  her  fortune,  which  had  suffered  not  a 
little  from  M.  des  Grassins'  extravagance  and  folly.  But  the 
quasi-widow  was  in  a  false  position,  and  the  Cruchotins  did 
all  that  in  them  lay  to  make  matters  worse ;  she  had  to  give 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  157 

up  all  hope  of  a  match  between  her  son  and  Eugenie  Grandet, 
and  married  her  daughter  very  badly.  Adolphe  de^  Grassins 
went  to  join  his  father  in  Paris,  and  there  acquired,  so  it  was 
said,  an  unenviable  reputation.  The  triumph  of  the  Cruchotins 
was  complete. 

"Your  husband  has  taken  leave  of  his  senses,"  Grandet 
took  occasion  to  remark  as  he  accommodated  Mme.  des 
Grassins  with  a  loan  (on  good  security).  "I  am  very  sorry 
for  you  ;  you  are  a  nice  little  woman." 

"Ah  !  "  sighed  the  poor  lady,  "who  could  have  believed 
that  day  when  he  set  out  for  Paris  to  see  after  that  business  of 
yours  that  he  was  hurrying  to  his  own  ruin  ?  " 

"  Heaven  is  my  witness,  madame,  that  to  the  very  last  I  did 
all  I  could  to  prevent  him,  and  M.  le  President  was  dying 
to  go  ;  but  we  know  now  why  your  husband  .  was  so  set 
upon  it." 

Clearly,  therefore,  Grandet  lay  under  no  obligation  to  des 
Grassins. 

In  every  situation  a  woman  is  bound  to  suffer  in  many 
ways  that  a  man  does  not,  and  to  feel  her  troubles  more 
acutely  than  he  can  ;  for  a  man's  vigor  and  energy  are  con- 
stantly brought  into  play  ;  he  acts  and  thinks,  comes  and 
goes,  busies  himself  in  the  present,  and  looks  to  the  future 
for  consolation.  This  was  what  Charles  was  doing.  But  a 
woman  cannot  help  herself — hers  is  a  passive  part ;  she  is 
left  face  to  face  with  her  trouble,  and  has  nothing  to  divert 
her  mind  from  it ;  she  sounds  the  depths  of  the  abyss  of 
sorrow,  and  its  dark  places  are  filled  with  her  prayers  and 
tears.  So  it  was  with  Eugenie.  She  was  beginning  to  under- 
stand that  the  web  of  a  woman's  life  will  always  be  woven 
of  love  and  sorrow  and  hope  and  fear  and  self-sacrifice ; 
hers  was  to  be  a  woman's  lot  in  all  things  without  a 
woman's  consolations,  and  her  moments  of  happiness  (to 
make  use  of  Bossuet's  wonderful  illustration)  were  to  be  like 


158  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

the  scattered  nails  driven  into  the  wall,  when  all  collected 
together  they  scarcely  filled  the  hollow  of  the  hand.  Troubles 
seldom  keep  us  waiting  for.  them,  and  for  Eugenie  they 
were  gathering  thick  and  fast. 

The  day  after  Charles  had  gone,  the  Grandet  household  fell 
back  into  the  old  ways  of  life ;  there  was  no  difference  for  any 
one  but  Eugenie — for  her  the  house  had  grownjvery  empty  all 
of  a  sudden.  Charles'  room  shouIoTremain  just  as  he  had  left 
itpKTme.  Grandet  and  Nanon  lent  themselves  to  this  whim 
of  hers,  willingly  maintained  the  statu  quo,  and  said  nothing 
to  her  father. 

"Who  knows?"  Eugenie  said.  "He  may  come  back  to 
us  sooner  than  we  think." 

"Ah  !  Ij&ish  I  could  see  him  here  again,"  replied  Nanon. 
"  I  could  get  on  with  him  well  ^enough  !  He  was  very  nice, 
and  an  excellent  gentleman  ;  and  he  was  pretty-like,  his  hair 
curled  over  his  head  just  like  a  girl's." 

Eugenie  gazed  at  Nanon. 

"  Holy  Virgin  !  mademoiselle,  with  such  eyes, 'you  are  like 
to  lose  your  soul.     You  shouldn't  look  at  people  in  that  way." 

From  that  day  Mile.  Grandet's  beauty  took  a  new  character. 
The  grave  thoughts  of  love  that  slowly  enveloped  her  soul,  the 
dignity  of  a  woman  who  is  beloved,  gave  to  her  face  the  sort 
of  radiance  that  early  painters  expressed  by  the  aureole.  Be- 
fore her  cousin  came  into  her  life,  Eugenie  might  have  been 
compared  to  the  Virgin  as  yet  unconscious  of  her  destiny; 
and  now  that  he  had  passed  out  of  it,  she  seemed  like  the  Vir- 
gin Mother ;  she,  too,  bore  love  in  her  heart.  Spanish  art 
has  depicted  these  two  Marys,  so  different  one  from  the  other 
— Christianity,  with  its  many  symbols,  knows  no  more  glorious 
types  than  these. 

The  day  after  Charles  had  left  them,  Eugenie  went  to  mass 
(as  she  had  resolved  to  do  daily),  and  on  her  way  back  bought 
a  map  of  the  world  from  the  only  bookseller  in  the  town.  This 
she  pinned  to  the  wall  beside  her  glass,  so  that  she  might  fol- 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  159 

low  the  course  of  her  cousin's  voyage  to  the  Indies;  and  night 
and  morning  might  be  beside  him  for  a  little  while  on  that 
far-off  vessel,  and  see  him  and  ask  all  the  endless  questions  she 
longed  to  ask. 

"  Are  you  well  ?  Are  you  not  sad  ?  Am  I  in  your  thoughts 
when  you  see  the  star  that  you  told  me  about  ?  You  made  me 
see  how  beautiful  it  was." 

In  the  morning  she  used  to  sit  like  one  in  a  dream  under 
the  .great  walnut  tree,  on  thT6lH*gFay;"ifche'n-covered,  worm- 
eaten  bench  -where  they  had  talked  so  kindly  and  so  foolishly, 
where  they  had  built  such  fair  castles  in  the  air  in  which  to 
live.  She  thought  of  the  future  as  she  watched  the  little  strip 
of  sky  shut  in  by  the  high  walls  on  every  side,  then  her  eyes 
wandered  over  the  old  buttressed  wall  and  the  roof — Charles' 
room  lay  beneath  it.  In  short,  this  solitary  persistent  love 
mingling  with  all  her  thoughts  became  the  substance,  or,  as 
our  forefathers  would  have  said,  the  "  staff"  of  her  life. 

If  Grandet's  self-styled  friends  came  in  of  an  evening,  she 
would  seem  to  be  in  high  spirits,  but  the  liveliness  was  only 
assumed  ;  she  used  to  talk  about  Charles  with  her  mother  and 
Nanon  the  whole  morning  through,  and  Nanon — who  was  of 
the  opinion  that  without  faltering  in  her  duty  to  her  master 
she  might  yet  feel  for  her  young  mistress'  troubles — Nanon 
spoke  on  this  wise — 

"  If  I  had  had  a  sweetheart,  I  would  have 1  would  have 

gone  with  him  to  hell.     I  would  have well,  then,  I  would 

just  have  laid  down  my  life  for  him,  but no  such  chance  ! 

I  shall  die  without  knowing  what  it  is  to  love.  Would'  you 
believe  it,  mamselle,  there  is  that  old  Cornoiller,  who  is  a 
good  man  all  the  same,  dangling  about  after  my  savings,  just 
like  the  others  who  come  here  paying  court  to  you  and  sniffing 
after  the  master's  money.  I  see  through  it ;  I  may  be  as  big 
as  a  haystack,  but  I  am  as  sharp  as  a  needle  yet.  Well !  and 
yet  do  you  know,  mamselle,  it  may  not  be  love,  but  I  rather 
like  it." 


160  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

In  this  way  two  months  went  by.  The  secret  that  bound 
the  three  women  so  closely  together  had  brought  a  new 
interest  into  the  household  life  hitherto  so  monotonous.  For 
them  Charles  still  dwelt  in  the  house,  and  came  and  went  be- 
neath the  old  gray  rafters  of  the  parlor.  Every  morning  and 
evening  Eugenie  opened  the  dressing-case  and  looked  at  her 
aunt's  portrait.  Her  mother,  suddenly  coming  into  her  room 
one  Sunday  morning,  found  her  absorbed  in  tracing  out  a 
likeness  to  Charles  in  the. lady  of  the  miniature,  and  Mme. 
Grandet  learned  for  the  first  time  a  terrible  secret,  how  that 
Eugenie  had  parted  with  her  treasures  and  had  taken  the  case 
in  exchange. 

"  You  have  let.  him  have  it  all !  "  cried  the  terrified  mother. 
"  What  will  you  say  to  your  father  on  New  Year's  Day  when 
he  asks  to  see  your  gold  ?  " 

Eugenie's  eyes  were  set  in  a  fixed  stare;  the  horror  of  this 
thought  so  filled  the  women  that  half  the  morning  went  by, 
and  they  were  distressed  to  find  themselves  too  late  for  high 
mass,  and  were  only  in  time  for  the  military  mass.  The  year 
1819  was  almost  over;  there  were  only  three  more  days  left. 
In  three  days  a  terrible  drama  would  begin,  a  drama  undigni- 
fied by  poison,  dagger,  or  bloodshed,  but  fate  dealt  scarcely 
more  cruelly  with  the  princely  house  of  Atreus  than  with  the 
actors  in  this  bourgeois  tragedy. 

"What  is  to  become  of  us?"  said  Mme.  Grandet,  laying 
down  her  knitting  on  her  knee. 

Poor  mother  !  all  the  events  of  the  past  two  months  had 
sadly  hindered  the  knitting,  the  woolen  cuffs  for  winter  wear 
were  not  finished  yet,  a  homely  and  apparently  insignificant 
fact  which  was  to  work  trouble  enough  for  her.  For  want  of 
the  warm  cuffs  she  caught  a  chill  after  a  violent  perspiration 
brought  on  by  one  of  her  husband's  fearful  outbursts  of  rage. 

"  My  poor  child,  I  have  been  thinking  that  if  you  had  only 
told  me  about  this,  we  should  have  had  time  to  write  to  M. 
des  Grassins  in  Paris.     He  might  have  managed  to  send  us 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  161 

some  gold-pieces  like  those  of  yours;  and  although  Grandet 

knows  the  look  of  them  so  well,  still  perhaps " 

"But  where  could  we  have  found  so  much  money?" 

"  I  would  have  raised  it  on  my  property.     Besides,  M.  des 

Grassins  would  have  befriended  us " 

"There  is  not  time  enough  now,"  faltered  Eugenie  in  a 
smothered  voice.  "  To-morrow  morning  we  shall  have  to  go 
to  his  room  to  wish  him  a  happy  New  Year,  shall  we  not  ?  " 
"  Oh  !  Eugenie,  why  not  go  and  see  the  Cruchots  about  it  ?  " 
"  No,  no,  that  would  be  putting  ourselves  in  their  power; 
I  should  be  entirely  in  their  hands  then.  Besides,  I  have 
made  up  my  mind.  I  have  acted  quite  rightly,  and  I  repent 
of  nothing  ;  God  will  protect  me.  May  His  holy  will  be  done ! 
Ah  !  if  you  had  read  that  letter,  mother,  you  would  have 
thought  of  nothing  but  him." 

The  next  morning,  January,  i,  1820,  the  mother  and 
daughter  were  in  an  agony  of  distress  that  they  could  not 
hide ;  sheer  terror  suggested  the  simple  expedient  of  omitting 
the  solemn  visit  to  Grandet's  room.  The  bitter  weather 
served  as  an  excuse;  the  winter  of  1819-20  was  the  coldest 
that  had  been  known  for  years,  and  snow  lay  deep  on  the  roofs. 

Mme.  Grandet  called  to  her  husband  as  soon  as  she  heard 
him  stirring,  "  Grandet,  just  let  Nanon  light  a  bit  of  fire  in 
here  for  me,  the  air  is  so  sharp  that  I  am  shivering  under  the 
bedclothes,  and  at  my  time  of  life  I  must  take  care  of  myself. 
And  then,"  she  went  on  after  a  little  pause,  "Eugenie  shall 
come  in  there  to  dress.  The  poor  girl  may  do  herself'a-T'fns- 
chief  if  she  dresses  in  her  own  rodm~rnjticfrTgWT^^Ve""will 
corrre"down  stairs  into  thesitting-room  and  wish  you  a  happy 
New  Year  there  by  the  fire." 

"Tut,  tut,  tut,  what  a  tongue  !     What  a  way  to  begin  the 
year,  Mme.  Grandet !     You  have  never  said  so  much  in  your 
life  before.     You  have  not  had  a  sop  of  bread  in  wine,  I  sup- 
pose ?  ' ' 
11 


162  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

There  was  a  moment's  pause.  Doubtless  his  wife's  pro- 
posal suited  his  notions,  for  he  said,  "  Very  well,  I  will  do  as 
you  wish,  Mme.  Grandet.  You  really  are  a  good  sort  of 
woman,  it  would  be  a  pity  for  you  to  expire  before  you  are 
due,  though,  as  a  rule,  the  La  Bertellieres  make  old  bones, 
don't  they,  hey?"  he  cried,  after  a  pause.  "Well,  their 
money  has  fallen  in  at  last ;  I  forgive  them,"  and  he  coughed. 

"  You  are  in  spirits  this  morning,"  said  the  poor  wife. 

"  I  always  am  in  spirits." 

Hey  !  hey  !  cooper  gay, 

Mend  your  tub  and  take  your  pay. 

He  had  quite  finished  dressing,  and  came  into  his  wife's 
room.  "Yes,  in  the  name  of  goodness!  it  is  a  mighty 
hard  frost,  all  the  same.  We  shall  have  a  good  breakfast 
to-day,  wife.  Des  Grassins  has  sent  me  a  pate  de  foies  gras, 
truffled  !  I  am  going  round- to  the  coach  office  to  see  after  it. 
He  should  have  sent  a  double  napoleon  for  Eugenie  along 
with  it,"  said  the  cooper,  coming  closer,  and  lowering  his 
voice.  "I  have  no  gold,  I  certainly  had  a  few  old  coins  still 
left,  I  may  tell  you  that  in  confidence,  but  I  had  to  let  them 
go  in  the  course  of  business,"  and  by  way  of  celebrating  the 
first  day  of  the  year  he  kissed  his  wife  on  the  forehead. 

"Eugenie,"  cried  the  kind  mother,  as  soon  as  Grandet 
had  gone,  "I  don't  know  which  side  of  the  bed  your  father 
got  out  on,  but  he  is  in  a  good  humor  this  morning.  Pshaw  ! 
we  shall  pull  through." 

"  What  can  have  come  over  the  master  ?  "  cried  Nanon  as 
she  came  into  the  room  to  light  the  fire.  "  First  of  all,  he 
says,  '  Good-morning,  great  stupid,  a  happy  New  Year ! 
Go  upstairs  and  light  a  fire  in  my  wife's  room  ;  she  is  feeling 
cold.'  I  thought  I  must  be  off  my  head  when  I  saw  him  hold- 
ing out  his  hand  with  a  six-franc  piece  in  it  that  hadn't  been 
clipped  a  bit  !  There  !  madame,  only  look  at  it !  Oh  !  he 
is   a   worthy   man,  all   the  same — he    is  a   good  man,  he  is. 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  163 

There  are  some  as  get  harder-hearted  the  older  they  grow ; 
but    he    turns  sweeter,  like    your  cordial   that  improves  with 

keeping.     He  is  a  very  good  and  a  very  excellent  man " 

Grandet's  speculation  had  been  completely  successful ;  this 
was  the  cause  of  his  high  spirits.  M.  des  Grassins — after 
deducting  various  amounts  which  the  cooper  owed  him,  partly 
for  discounting  Dutch  bills  to  the  amount  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  francs,  and  partly  for  advances  of  money  for 
the  purchase  of  a  hundred  thousand  livres  worth  of  consols — 
M.  des  Grassins  was  sending  him,  by  diligence,  thirty  thou- 
sand francs  in  crowns,  the  remainder  (after  the  aforesaid 
deductions  had  been  made)  of  the  cooper's  half-yearly  divi- 
dends, and  informed  Grandet  that  consols  were  steadily  rising. 
They  stood  at  eighty-nine  at  the  present  moment,  and  well- 
known  capitalists  were  buying  for  the  next  account  at  the  end 
of  January  at  ninety-two.  In  two  months  Grandet  had 
made  twelve  per  cent,  on  his  capital  ;  he  had  straightened  his 
accounts;  and  henceforward  he  would  receive  fifty  thousand 
francs  every  half-year,  clear  of  taxes  or  any  outgoing  ex- 
penses. In  short,  he  had  grasped  the  theory  of  consols  (a 
class  of  investment  of  which  the  provincial  mind  is  exceed- 
ingly shy),  and,  looking  ahead,  he  beheld  himself  the  master 
of  six  millions  of  francs  in  five  years'  time — six  millions, 
which  would  go  on  accumulating  with  scarcely  any  trouble  on 
his  part — six  millions  of  francs  !  And  there  was  the  value  of 
his  landed  property  to  add  to  this ;  he  saw  himself  in  a  fair 
way  to  build  up  a  colossal  fortune.  The  six  francs  given  to 
Nanon  were  perhaps  in  reality  the  payment  for  an  immense 
service  which  the  girl  had  unwittingly  done  her  master. 

"Oho!  what  can  M.  Grandet  be  after?  He  is  running 
as  if  there  were  a  fire  somewhere,"  the  shopkeepers  said  to 
each  other  as  they  took  down  their  shutters  that  New  Year's 
morning. 

A  little  later  when   they  saw  him  coming  back  from   the 


164  EUG&NIE    GRAND ET. 

quay  followed  by  a  porter  from  the  coach  office,  who  was 
wheeling  a  barrow  piled  up  with  little  bags  full  of  some- 
thing  

"Ah  !  "  said  they,  "  water  always  makes  for  the  river,  the 
old  boy  was  hurrying  after  his  crowns." 

"  They  flow  in  on  him  from  Paris,  and  Froidfond,  and  Hol- 
land," said  one. 

"  He  will  buy  Saumur  before  he  has  done,"  cried 
another. 

"  He  does  not  care  a  rap  for  the  cold ;  he  is  always  looking 
after  his  business,"  said  a  woman  to  her  husband. 

"  Hi  !  M.  Grandet !  if  you  have  more  of  that  than  you 
know  what  to  do  with,  I  can  help  you  to  get  rid  of  some 
of.it." 

"  Eh  !  they  are  only  coppers,"  said  the  vine-grower. 

"  Silver,  he  means,"  said  the  porter  in  a  low  voice. 

"  Keep  a  still  tongue  in  your  head,  if  you  want  me  to 
bear  you  in  mind,"  said  M.  Grandet  as  he  opened  the 
door. 

"  Oh  !  the  old  fox.  I  thought  he  was  deaf,"  said  the  porter 
to  himself,  "  but  it  looks  as  though  he  could  hear  well  enough 
in  cold  weather." 

"Here  is  a  franc  for  a  New  Year's  gift,  and  keep  quiet 
about  this.  Off  with  you !  Nanon  will  bring  back  the 
barrow.  Nanon  !  "  cried  Grandet,  "are  the  women-folk  gone 
to  mass?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"  Come,  look  sharp,  and  lend  a  hand  here,  then,"  he  cried, 
and  loaded  her  with  the  bags.  In  another  minute  the  crowns 
were  safely  transferred  to  his  room,  where  he  locked  himself  in. 

"  Thump  on  the  wall  when  breakfast  is  ready,"  he  called 
through  the  door,  and  take  the  wheelbarrow  back  to  the  coach 
office." 

It  was  ten  o'clock  before  the  family  breakfasted. 

"Your  father  will  not  ask  to  see  your  gold  now,"  said 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  165 

Mme.  Grandet  as  they  came  back  from  mass ;  "  and  if  he  does, 
you  can  shiver  and  say  it  is  too  cold  to  go  up  stairs  for  it.  We 
shall  have  time  to  make  up  the  money  again  before  your 
birthday " 

Grandet  came  down  the  stairs  with  his  head  full  of  schemes 
for  transforming  the  five-franc  pieces  just  received  from  Paris 
into  gold  coin,  which  should  be  neither  clipped  nor  light 
weight.  He  thought  of  his  admirably  timed  investment  in 
government  stock,  and  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  con- 
tinue to  put  his  money  into  consols  until  they  rose  to  a  hun- 
dred francs.  Such  meditations  as  these  boded  ill  for  Eugenie. 
As  soon  as  he  came  in  the  two  women  wished  him  a  prosperous 
New  Year,  each  in  her  own  way ;  Mme.  Grandet  was  grave 
and  ceremonious,  but  his  daughter  put  her  arms  round  his 
neck  and  kissed  him.  "Aha!  child,"  he  said,  kissing  her 
on  both  cheeks,  "I  am  thinking  and  working  for  you,  you 

see  ! 1  want  you  to  be  happy,  and  if  you  are  to  be  happy, 

you  must  have  money;  for  you  won't  get  anything  without 
it.  Look  !  here  is  a  brand  new  napoleon,  I  sent  to  Paris  on 
purpose  for  it.  In  the  name  of  goodness  !  there  is  not  a  speck 
of  gold  in  the  house,  except  yours,  you  are  the  one  who  has 
the  gold.     Let  me  see  your  gold,  little  girl." 

"  Bah  !  it  is  too  cold?  let  us  have  breakfast,"  Eugenie  an- 
swered. 

"Well,  then,  after  breakfast  we  will  have  a  look  at  it,  eh? 
It  will  be  good  for  our  digestions.  That  great  des  Grassins 
sent  us  this,  all  the  same,"  he  went  on,  "so  get  your  break- 
fast, children,  for  it  costs  us  nothing.  Des  Grassins  is  going 
on  nicely ;  I  am  pleased  with  him  ;  the  old  fish  is  doing 
Charles  a  service,  and  all  free  gratis.  Really,  he  is  managing 
poor  dear  Grandet's  affairs  very  cleverly.  Ououh  I  ououh  !  " 
he  cried,  with  his  mouth  full,  "  this  is  good  !  Eat  away,  wife, 
there  is  enough  here  to  last  us  for  two  days  at  least." 

"  I  am  not  hungry.  I  am  very  poorly,  you  know  that  very 
well." 


166  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

"  Oh  !  Ah  !  but  you  have  a  sound  constitution  ;  you  are  a 
La  Bertelliere,  and  you  can  put  away  a  great  deal  without  any 
fear  of  damaging  yourself.  You  may  be  a  trifle  sallow,  but  I 
have  a  liking  for  yellow  myself." 

The  prisoner  shrinking  from  a  public  and  ignominious 
death  could  not  well  await  his  doom  with  a  more  sickening 
dread  than  Mme.  Grandet  and  Eugenie  felt  as  they  foresaw 
the  end  of  breakfast  and 'the  inevitable  sequel.  The  more 
boisterously  the  cooper  talked  and  ate,  the  lower  sank  their 
spirits;  but  to  the  girl,  in  this  crisis,  a, certain  support  was 
not  lacking,  love  was  strong  within  her.  "  I  would  die  a 
thousand  deaths,"  she  thought,  "  for  him,  for  him  !  " 

She  looked  at  her  mother,  and  courage  and  defiance  shone 
in  her  eyes. 

By  eleven  o'clock  they  had  finished  breakfast.  "  Clear 
everything  away,"  Grandet  told  Nanon,  "but  leave  us  the 
table.  We  can  look  over  your  little  treasure  more  comfortably 
so,"  he  said  with  his  eyes  on  Eugenie.  "Little,  said  I?  'Tis 
not  so  small,  though,  upon  my  word.  Your  coins  altogether 
are  actually  worth  'five  thousand  nine  hundred  and  fifty-nine 
francs,  then  with  forty  more  this  morning,  that  makes  six 
thousand  francs  all  but  one.     Well,  I  will  give  you  another 

franc  to  make  up  the  sum,  because,  you  see,  little  girl 

Well !  now,  why  are  you  listening  to  us  !  Just  take  yourself 
off,  Nanon,  and  set  about  your  work  !  " 

Nanon  vanished. 

"Listen,  Eugenie,  you  must  let  me  have  your  gold.  You 
will  not  refuse  to  let  your  papa  have  it  ?   Eh,  little  daughter?" 

Neither  of  the  women  spoke. 

"  I  myself  have  no  gold  left.  I  had  some  once,  but  I  have 
none  now.  I  will  give  you  six  thousand  francs  in  silver  for 
it,  and  you  shall  invest  it  ;  I  will  show  you  how.  There  is 
really  no  need  to  think  of  a  dozen.  When  you  are  married 
(which  will  be  before  very  long)  I  will  find  a  husband  for  you 
who  will  give  you  the  handsomest  dozen  that  has  ever  been 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  167 

heard  of  hereabouts.  There  is  a  splendid  opportunity  just 
now  ;  you  can  invest  your  six  thousand  francs  in  government 
stock,  and  every  six  months,  when  dividends  are  due,  you 
will  have  about -two  hundred  francs  coming  in,  all  clear  of 
taxes,  and  no  repairs  to  pay  for,  and  no  frosp  nor  hail  nor 
bad  seasons,  none  of  all  the  tiresome  drawbacks  you  have  to 
lay  your  account  with  if  you  put  your  money  into  land.  You 
don't  like  to  part  with  your  gold,  eh?  Is  that  it,  little  girl  ? 
Never  mind,  let  me  have  it  all  the  same.  I  will  look  out  for 
gold  coins  for  you,  ducats  from  Holland,  and  genovines  and 
Portuguese  moidores  and  rupees,  the  Mogul's  rupees ;  and 
what  with  the  coins  I  shall  give  you  on  your  birthday  and  so 
forth,  you  will  have  half  your  little  hoard  again  in  three  years 
time,  beside  the  six  thousand  francs  in  the  funds.  What  do 
you  say,  little  girl  ?  Look  up,  child  !  There  !  there  !  bring 
it  here,  my  pet.  You  owe  me  a  good  kiss  for  telling  you 
business  secrets  and  mysteries  of  the  life  and  death  of  five-franc 
pieces.  Five-franc  pieces  !  Yes,  indeed,  the  coins  live  and 
gad  about  just  like  men  do  ;  they  go  and  come  and  sweat  and 
multiply." 

Eugenie  rose  and  made  a  few  steps  towards  the  door ;  then 
she  turned  abruptly,  looked  her  father  full  in  the  face,  and  said  — 

"  All  my  gold  is  gone;  I  have  none  left." 

"  All  your  gold  is  gone  !  "  echoed  Grandet,  starting  up,  as 
a  horse  might  rear  when  the  cannon  thunders  not  ten  paces 
from  him. 

"  Yes,  it  is  all  gone." 

"  Eugenie  !  you  are  dreaming  !  " 

"No." 

"By  my  father's  pruning-hook  !  "  Whenever  the  cooper 
swore  in  this  fashion,  the  floors  and  ceilings  trembled. 

"  Lord  have  mercy!"  cried  Nanon  ;  "how  white  the 
mistress  is  !  " 

"  Grandet  !  you  will  kill  me  with  your  angry  fits/'  said  the 
poor  wife. 


168  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

"Tut,  tut,  tut;  none  of  your  family  ever  die.  Now, 
Eugenie  !  what  have  you  done  with  your  money?  "  he  burst 
out  as  he  turned  upon  her. 

The  girl  was  on  her  knees  beside  Mme.  Grandet. 

"  Look  !  sir,"  she  said,  "  my  mother  is  very  ill do  not 

kill  her." 

Grandet  was  alarmed  ;  his  wife's  dark,  sallow  complexion 
had  grown  so  white. 

"  Nan  on,  come  and  help  me  up  to  bed,"  she  said  in  a 
feeble  voice.     "  This  is  killing  me " 

Nanon  gave  an  arm  to  her  mistress,  and  Eugenie  supported 
her  on  the  other  side;  but  it  was  only  with  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty that  they  reached  her  room,  for  the  poor  mother's 
strength  completely  failed  her,  and  she  stumbled  at  every 
step.  Grandet  was  left  alone  in  the  parlor.  After  a  while, 
however,  he  came  part  of  the  way  upstairs,  and  called  out — 

"  Eugenie  !  Come  down  again  as  soon  as  your  mother  is 
in  bed." 

"Yes,  father." 

In  no  long  time  she  returned  to  him,  after  comforting  her 
mother  as  best  she  could. 

"Now,  my  daughter,"  Grandet  addressed  her,  "  you  will 
tell  me  where  your  money  is." 

"  If  I  am  not  perfectly  free  to  do  as  I  like  with  your 
presents,  father,  please  take  them  back  again,"  said  Eugenie 
coldly.  She  went  to  the  chimney-piece  for  the  napoleon,  and 
gave  it  to  her  father. 

Grandet  pounced  upon  it,  and  slipped  it  into  his  waistcoat 
pocket.         ^ 

"I  will  never  give  you  anything  again,  I  know,"  he  said, 
pointing  his  thumb  at  her.  "You  look  down  on  your  father,  do 
you  ?  You  have  no  confidence  in  him  ?  Do  you  know  what 
a  father  is  ?  If  he  is  not  everything  to  you,  he  is  nothing. 
Now  ;  where  is  your  gold  ?  " 

"  I  do  respect  you  and  love  you,  father,  in  spite  of  your 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  169 

anger  ;  but  I  would  very  humbly  point  out  to  you  that  I  am 
twenty-one  years  old.  You  have  told  me  that  I  am  of  age 
often  enough  for  me  to  know  it.  I  have  done  as  I  liked  with 
my  money,  and  rest  assured  that  it  is  in  good  hands " 

"Whose?" 

"  That  is  an  inviolable  secret,"  she  said.  "  Have  you  not 
your  secrets  ?  ' ' 

"  Am  I  not  the  head  of  my  family  ?  May  I  not  be  allowed 
to  have  my  own  business  affairs?  " 

"This  is  my  own  affair." 

"  It  must  be  something  very  unsatisfactory,  Mile.  Grandet, 
if  you  cannot  tell  your  own  father  about  it." 

"It  is  perfectly  satisfactory,  and  I  cannot  tell  my  father 
about  it." 

"Tell  me,  at  any  rate,  when  you  parted  with  your  gold." 

Eugenie  shook  her  head. 

"  You  still  had  it  on  your  birthday,  hadn't  you,  eh  ?  " 

But  if  greed  had  made  her  father  crafty,  love  had  taught 
Eugenie  to  be  wary;  she  shook  her  head  again. 

"  Did  anyone  ever  hear  of  such  obstinacy,  or  of  such  a 
robbery  ?  "  cried  Grandet,  in  a  voice  which  gradually  rose  till 
it  rang  through  the  house.  "  What !  here,  in  my  house,  in 
my  own  house,  some  one  has  taken  your  gold  !  Taken  all  the 
gold  that  there  was  in  the  place  !  And  I  am  not  to  know  who 
it  was  ?  Gold  is  a  precious  thing.  The  best  of  girls  go 
wrong  and  throw  themselves  away  one  way  or  another  ;  that 
happens  among  great  folk,  and  even  among  decent  citizens ; 
but  think  of  throwing  gold  away  !  For  you  gave  it  to  some- 
body, I  suppose,  eh?  " 

Eugenie  gave  no  sign. 

"  Did  any  one  ever  see  such  a  daughter!  Can  you  be  a 
child  of  mine?  If  you  have  parted  with  your  money,  you 
must  have  a  receipt  for  it " 

"  Was  I  free  to  do  as  I  wished  with  it — Yes  or  no?  Was  it 
mine?" 


170  EUGENIE   GRANDET. 

il  Why,  you  are  a  child." 

"  I  am  of  age." 

At  first  Grandet  was  struck  dumb  by  his  daughter  daring  to 
argue  with  him,  and  in  this  way  !  He  turned  pale,  stamped, 
swore,  and  finding  words  at  last,  he  shouted — 

"  Accursed  serpent !  Miserable  girl !  Oh!  you  know  well 
that  I  love  you,  and  you  take  advantage  of  it  !  You  ungrateful 
child  !  She  would  rob  and  murder  her  own  father  !  Pardieu  ! 
you  would  have  thrown  all  we  have  at  the  feet  of  that  vaga- 
bond with  the  morocco  boots.  By  my  father's  pruning-hook, 
I  cannot  disinherit  yon,  but  in  the  name  of  thunder !  I  can  curse, 
you ;  you  and  your  cousin  and  your  children.    Nothing  good  can 

come  out  of  this  ;  do  you  hear  ?     If  it  was  to  Charles  that 

But,  no,  that  is  impossible.     What  if  that    miserable  puppy 
should  have  robbed  me?  " 

He  glared  at  his  daughter,  who  was  still  silent  and  unmoved. 

"  She  does  not  stir  !  She  does  not  flinch  !  She  is  more  of 
a  Grandet  than  I  am.  You  did  not  give  your  gold  away  for 
nothing,  anyhow.     Come,  now;  tell  me  about  it?" 

Eugenie  looked  up  at  her  father;  her  satirical  glance  exas- 
perated him. 

"  Eugenie,  this  is  my  house ;  so  long  as  you  are  under  your 
father's  roof  you  must  do  as  your  father  bids  you.  The  priests 
command  you  to  obey  me." 

Eugenie  bent  her  head  again. 

f  You  are  wounding  all  my  tenderest  feelings,"  he  went  on. 
"  Get  out  of  my  sight  until  you  are  ready  to  obey  me.  Go 
to  your  room  and  stay  there  until  I  give  you  leave  to  come 
out  of  it.  Nanon  will  bring  you  bread  and  water.  Do  you 
hear  what  I  say?     Go  !  p 

Eugdnie  burst  into  tears,  and  fled  away  to  her  mother. 
Grandet  took  several  turns  in  his  garden  without  heeding  the 
snow  or  the  cold;  then,  suspecting  that  his  daughter  would 
be  in  his  wife's  room,  and  delighted  with  the  idea  of  catching 
them  in  flagrant  disobedience  to  orders,  he  climbed  the  stairs 


DO    YOU   HEAR    WHAT   I    SAY?     GOT" 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  171 

as  stealthy  as  a  cat,  and  suddenly  appeared  in  Mrae.  Grandet's 
room.  He  was  right ;  she  was  stroking  Eugenie's  hair,  and 
the  girl  lay  with  her  face  hidden  in  her  mother's  breast. 

"  Poor  child  !     Never  mind,  your  father  will  relent."  % 

"She  has  no  longer  a  father  !  "  said  the  cooper.  "Is  it 
really  possible,  Mme.  Grandet,  that  we  have  brought  such  a 
disobedient  daughter  into  the  world  ?  A  pretty  bringing  up ; 
and  pious,  too,  above  all  things  !  Well !  how  is  it  you  are  not 
in  your  room  ?    Come,  off  to  prison  with  you;  to  prison,  miss."  / 1 

"  Do  you  mean  to  take  my  daughter  away  from  me,  sir  ?  " 
said  Mme.  Grandet,  as  she  raised  a  flushed  face  and  bright, 
feverish  eyes. 

"If  you  want   to  keep  her,  take  her  along  with  you,  and 

the  house  will  be  rid  of  you   both  at  once Thunder  ! 

Where  is  the  gold  ?     What  has  become  of  the  gold  ?  " 

Eugenie  rose  to  her  feet,  looked  proudly  at  her  father,  and 
went  into  her  room ;  he  turned  the  key  in  the  door. 

"  Nanon  !  "  he  shouted,  "  you  can  rake  out  the  fire  in  the 
parlor;  "  then  he  came  back  and  sat  down  in  an  easy-chair  that 
stood  between  the  fire  and  his  wife's  bedside,  saying  as  he  did 
so,  "  Of  course  she  gave  her  gold  to  that  miserable  seducer, 
Charles,  who  only  cared  for  our  money." 

Mme.  Grandet's  love  for  her  daughter  gave  her  courage  in 
the  face  of  this  danger  ;  to  all  appearance  she  was  deaf, 
dumb,  and  blind  to  all  that '  was  implied  by  this  speech. 
She  turned  on  her  bed  so  as  to  avoid  the  angry  glitter  of  her 
husband's  eyes. 

"I  knew  nothing  about  all  this,"  she  said.  "Your  anger 
makes  me  so  ill,  that  if  my  forebodings  come  true  I  shall  only 
leave  this  room  when  they  carry  me  out  feet  foremost.  I 
think  you  might  have  "spared  me~fhis  scene,  sir.  I,  at  all 
events,  have  never  caused  you  any  vexation.  Your  daughtei 
loves  you,  and  I  am  sure  she  is  as  innocent  as  a  newborn 
babe  ;  so  do  not  make  her  miserable,  and  take  back  your  word. 
This  cold  is  terribly  sharp  ;  it  might  make  her  seriously  ill/' 


172  EUG&NIE    GRAND ET. 

"  I  shall  neither  see  her  nor  speak  to  her.  She  shall  stop 
in  her  room  on  bread  and  water  until  she  has  done  as  her 
father  bids  her.  What  the  devil !  the  head  of  a  family  ought 
to  know  when  gold  goes  out  of  his  house,  and  where  it 
goes.  She  had  the  only  rupees  that  there  are  in  France, 
for  aught  I  know;  then  there  were  genovines  besides,  and 
Dutch  ducats " 

' '  Eugenie  is  our  only  child,  and  even  if  she  had  flung  them 
into  the  water " 

"  Into  the  water  !  "  shouted  the  worthy  cooper.  "  Into  the 
water  /  Mme.  Grandet,  you  are  raving  !  When  I  say  a  thing 
I  mean  it,  as  you  well  know.  If  you  want  to  have  peace  in  the 
house,  get  her  to  confess  to  you,  and  worm  this  secret  out  of  her. 
Women  understand  each  other,  and  are  cleverer  at  this  sort 
of  thing  than  we  are.  Whatever  she  may  have  done,  I  cer- 
tainly shall  not  eat  her.  Is  she  afraid  of  me  ?  If  she  had 
covered  her  cousin  with  gold  from  head  to  foot,  he  is  safe  on 
the  high-seas  by  this  time,  hein  !  We  cannot  run  after 
him " 

"Really,  sir "  his  wife  began. 

But  Mme.  Grande  t's  nature  had  developed  during  her 
daughter's  trouble  ;  she  felt  more  keenly,  and  perhaps  her 
thoughts  moved  more  quickly,  or  it  may  be  that  excitement 
and  the  strain  upon  her  overwrought  nerves  had  sharpened 
her  mental  faculties.  She  saw  the  wen  on  her  husband's 
face  twitch  ominously  even  as  she  began  to  speak,  and 
changed  her  purpose  without  changing  her  voice. 

"  Really,  sir,  have  I  any  more  authority  over  her  than  you 
have  ?  She  has  never  said  a  word  about  it  to  me.  She  takes 
after  you." 

"Goodness  !  your  tongue  is  hung  in  the  middle  this  morn- 
ing !  Tut,  tut,  tut  ;  you  are  going  to  fly  in  my  face,  I  sup- 
pose?    Perhaps  you  and  she  are  both  in  it." 

He  glared  at  his  wife. 

"  Really,  M.   Grandet,  if  you  want  to  kill  me,  you  have 


EUGENIE    GRAN  VET.  178 

only  to  keep  on  as  you  are  doing.  I  tell  you,  sir,  and  if  it  were 
to  cost  me  my  life,  I  would  say  it  again — you  are  too  hard  on 
your  daughter;  she  is  a  great  deal  more  sensible  than  you 
are.  The  money  belonged  to  her ;  she  could  only  have  made 
a  good  use  of  it,  and  our  good  works  ought  to  be  known  to 
God  alone.  Sir,  I  implore  you,  take  Eugenie  back  into  favor. 
It  will  lessen  the  effect  of  the  shock  your  anger  gave  me,  and 
perhaps  will  save  my  life.  My  daughter,  sir ;  give  me  back 
my  daughter  !  " 

"  I  am  off,"  he  said.     "It  is  unbearable  here  in  my  house, 

when  a  mother  and  daughter  talk  and  argue  as  if Brooouh  ! 

Pouah  !  You  have  given  me  bitter  New  Year's  gifts,  Eugenie  !" 
he  called.  "  Yes,  yes,  cry  away  !  You  shall  repent  it,  do  you 
hear  ?  What  is  the  good  of  taking  the  sacrament  six  times  a 
quarter  if  you  give  your  father's  gold  away  on  the  sly  to  an 
idle  rascal  who  will  break  your  heart  when  you  have  nothing 
else  left  to  give  him  ?  You  will  find  out  what  he  is,  that 
Charles  of  'yours,  with  his  morocco  boots  and  his  stand-off 
airs.  He  can  have  no  heart  and  no  conscience  either,  when 
he  dares  to  carry  off  a  poor  girl's  money  without  the  consent 
of  her  parents." 

As  soon  as  the  street-door  was  shut,  Eugenie  stole  out  of 
her  room  and  came  to  her  mother's  bedside. 

"You  were  very  brave  for  your  daughter's  sake,"  she  said. 

"You  see  where  crooked  ways  lead  us,  child  ! You  have 

made  me  tell  a  lie." 

"  Oh  !  mother,  I  will  pray  to  God  to  let  all  the  punish- 
ment fall  on  me." 

"Is  it  true?"  asked  Nanon,  coming  upstairs  in  dismay, 
"  that  mademoiselle  here  is  to  be  put  on  bread  and  water  for 
the  rest  of  her  life  ?  " 

"What  does  it  matter,  Nanon?"  asked  Eugenie  calmly. 

"  Why,  before  I  would  eat  t  kitchen  '  while  the  daughter 

of  the  house  is  eating  dry  bread,  I  would no,  no,  it  won't 

do," 


174  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

"  Don't  say  a  word  about  it,  Nanon,"  Eugenie  warned  her. 

"  It  would  stick  in  my  throat ;  but  you  shall  see." 

Grandet  dined  alone,  for  the  first  time  in  twenty-four 
years. 

"So  you  are  a  widower,  sir,"  said  Nanon.  "It  is  a  very 
dismal  thing  to  be  a  widower  when  you  have  a  wife  and 
daughter  in  the  house." 

"I  did  not  speak  to  you,  did  I?  Keep  a  still  tongue  in 
your  head,  or  you  will  have  to  go.  What  have  you  in  that 
saucepan  that  I  can  hear  boiling  away  on  the  stove?  " 

"  Some  dripping  that  I  am  melting  down " 

"  There  will  be  some  people  here  this  evening;  light  the 
fire." 

The  Cruchots  and  their  friends,  Mme.  des  Grassins  and  her 
son,  all  came  in  about  eight  o'clock,  and  to  their  amazement 
saw  neither  Mme.  Grandet  nor  her  daughter. 

"  My  wife  is  not  very  well  to-day,  and  Eugenie  is  upstairs 
with  her,"  replied  the  old  cooper,  without  a  trace  of  perturba- 
tion on  his  face. 

After  an  hour  spent,  in  more  or  less  trivial  talk,  Mme.  des 
Grassins,  who  had  gone  upstairs  to  see  Mme.  Grandet,  came 
down  again  to  the  dining-room,  and  was  met  with  a  general 
inquiry  of  "  How  is  Mme.  Grandet  ?  " 

"  She  is  very  far  from  well,"  the  lady  said  gravely.  "  Her 
health  seems  to  me  to  be  in  a  very  precarious  state.  At  her 
time  of  life  you  ought  to  take  great  care  of  her,  papa 
Grandet." 

"  We  shall  see,"  said  the  vine-grower  abstractedly,  and  the 
whole  party  took  leave  of  him.  As  soon  as  the  Cruchots 
were  out  in  the  street  and  the  door  was  shut  behind  them, 
Mme.  des  Grassins  turned  to  them  and  said,  "  Something  has 
happened  among  the  Grandets.  The  mother  is  very  ill  ;  she 
herself  has  no  idea  how  ill  she  is,  and  the  girl's  eyes  are  red, 
as  if  she  had  been  crying  for  a  long  while.  Are  they  wanting 
to  marry  her  against  her  will  ?  " 


EUG&NIE   GRANDET.  175 

That  night,  when  the  cooper  had  gone  to  bed,  Nanon,  in 
list  slippers,  stole  up  to  Eugenie's  room,  and  displayed  a 
raised  pie,  which  she  had  managed  to  bake  in  a  saucepan. 

"  Here,  mademoiselle,"  said  the  kind  soul,  "  Cornoiller 
brought  a  hare  for  me.  You  eat  so  little  that  the  pie  will  last 
you  for  quite  a  week,  and  there  is  no  fear  of  its  spoiling  in 
this  frost.  You  shall  not  live  on  dry  bread,  at  any  rate  \  it  is 
not  at  all  good  for  you." 

"Poor  Nanon!"  said  Eugenie,  as  she  pressed  the  girl?s 
hand. 

"  I  have  made  it  very  dainty  and  nice,  and  he  never  found 
out  about  it.  I  paid  for  the  lard  and  the  bay-leaves  out  of  my 
six  francs;  I  can  surely  do  as  I  like  with  my  own  money," 
and  the  old  servant  fled,  thinking  that  she  heard  Grandet 
stirring. 

Several  months  went  by.  The  cooper  went  to  see  his  wife 
at  various  times  in  the  day,  and  never  mentioned  his  daugh- 
ter's name — never  saw  her,  nor  made  the  slightest  allusion  to 
her.  Mme.  Grandet' s  health  grew  worse  and  worse;  she  had 
not  once  left  her  room  since  that  terrible  January  morning. 
But  nothing  shook  the  old  cooper's  determination  ;  he  was 
hard,  cold,  and  unyielding  as  a  block  of  granite.  He  came 
and  went,  his  manner  of  life  was  in  nowise  altered  ;  but  he 
did  not  stammer  now,  and  he  talked  less ;  perhaps,  too,  in 
matters  of  business,  people  found  him  harder  than  before, 
but  errors  crept  into  his  book-keeping. 

Something  had  certainly  happened  in  the  Grandet  family, 
both  Cruchotins  and  Grassinistes  were  agreed  on  that  head  ; 
and  "  What  can  be  the  matter  with  the  Grandets  ?  "  became  a 
stock  question  which  people  asked  each  other  at  every  social 
gathering  in  Saumur. 

Eugenie  went  regularly  to  church,  escorted  by  Nanon. 
If  Mme.  des  Grassins  spoke  to  her  in  the  porch  as  she  came 
out,  the  girl  would  answer  evasively,  and  the  lady's  curiosity 
remained  ungratified.     But  after  two  months  spent  in   this 


176  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

fashion  it  was  almost  impossible  to  hide  the  real  state  of  affairs 
from  Mrae.  des  Grassins  or  from  the  Cruchots ;  a  time  came 
when  all  pretexts  were  exhausted,  and  Eugenie's  constant 
absence  still  demanded  an  explanation.  A  little  later,  though 
no  one  could  say  how  or  when  the  secret  leaked  out,  it  became 
common  property,  and  the  whole  town  knew  that  ever  since 
New  Year's  Day  Mile.  Grandet  had  been  locked  up  in  her 
room  by  her  father's  orders,  and  that  there  she  lived  on  bread 
and  water  in  solitary  confinement,  and  without  a  fire.  Nanon, 
it  was  reported,  cooked  dainties  for  her,  and  brought  food 
secretly  to  her  room  at  night.  Further  particulars  were  given. 
It  was  even  said  that  only  when  Grandet  was  out  of  the  house 
could  the  young  girl  nurse  her  mother,  or  indeed  see  her  at  all. 

People  blamed  Grandet  severely.  He  was  regarded  as  an 
outlaw,  as  it  were,  by  the  whole  town  ;  all  his  hardness,  his 
bad  faith  was  remembered  against  him,  and  every  one  shunned 
him.  They  whispered  and  pointed  at  him  as  he  went  by; 
and  as  his  daughter  passed  along  the  crooked  street  on  her 
way  to  mass  or  to  vespers,  with  Nanon  at  her  side,  people 
would  hurry  to  their  windows  and  look  curiously  at  the 
wealthy  heiress'  face — a  face  so  sad  and  so  divinely  sweet. 

The  town  gossip  reached  her  ears  as  slowly  as  it  reached  her 
father's.  HeTTmprisonment  and  her  father's  displeasure  were 
as  nothing  to  her  ;  had  she  not  her  map  of  the  world  ?  And 
from  her  window  could  she  not  see  the  little  bench,  the  old 
wall,  and  the  garden  walks?  Was  not  the  sweetness  of  those 
past  kisses  still  upon  her  lips?  So,  sustained  by  love  and  by 
the  consciousness  of  her  innocence  in  the  sight  of  God,  she 
could  patiently  endure  her  solitary  life  and  her  father's  anger; 
but  there  was  another  sorrow,  so  deep  and  so  overwhelming 
that  Eugenie  could  not  find  a  refuge  from  it.  The  gentle, 
patient  mother  was  gradually  passing  away ;  it  seemed  as  if 
the  beauty  of  her  soul  shone  out  more  and  more  brightly  in 
those  dark  days  as  she  drew  nearer  to  the  tomb.  Eugenie 
often  bitterly  blamed  herself  for  this  illness,  telling  herself 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  171 

that  she  had  been  the  innocent  cause  of  the  painful  malady 
that  was  slowly  consuming  her  mother's  life;  and,  in  spite  of 
all  her  mother  said  to  comfort  her,  this  remorseful  feeling 
made  her  cling  more  closely  to  the  love  she  was  to  lose  so 
soon.  Every  morning,  as  soon  as  her  father  had  left  the 
house,  she  went  to  sit  at  her  mother's  bedside.  Nanon  used 
to  bring  her  breakfast  to  her  there.  But  for  poor  Eugenie  in 
her  sadness,  this  suffering  was  almost  more  than  she  could 
bear ;  she  looked  at  her  mother's  face,  and  then  at  Nanon, 
with  tears  in  her  eyes,  and  was  dumb ;  she  did  not  dare  to 
speak  of  her  cousin  now.  It  was  always  Mme.  Grandet  who 
began  to  talk  of  him  ;  it  was  she  who  was  forced  to  say, 
"  Where  is  he  ?     Why  does  he  not  write  ?  " 

Neither  mother  nor  daughter  had  any  idea  of  the  distance. 

"  Let  us  think  of  him  without  talking  about  him,  mother," 
Eugenie  would  answer.  "You  are  suffering;  you  come  be- 
fore every  one;"  and  when  she  said  "every  one,"  Eugenie 
meant  him. 

"I  have  no  wish  to  live  any  longer,  child,"  Mme.  Grandet 
used  to  say.  "  God  in  His  protecting  care  has  led  me  to  look 
forward  joyfully  to  death  as  the  end  of  my  sorrows." 

Everything  that  she  said  was  full  of  Christian  piety.  For 
the  first  few  months  of  the  year  her  husband  breakfasted  in 
her  room,  and  always,  as  he  walked  restlessly  about,  he  heard 
the  same  words  from  her,  uttered  with  angelic  gentleness,  but 
with  firmness ;  the  near  approach  of  death  had  given  her  the 
courage  which  she  had  lacked  all  her  life. 

"Thank  you,  sir,  for  the  interest  which  you  take  in  my 
health,"  she  said  in  response  to  the  merest  formality  of  an  in- 
quiry; "but  if  you  really  wish  to  sweeten  the  bitterness  of 
my  last  moments,  and  to  alleviate  my  sufferings,  forgive  our 
daughter,  and  act  like  a  Christian,  a  husband,  and  a  father." 

At  these  words  Grandet  would  come  and  sit  down  by  the 
bed,  much  as  a  man  who  is  threatened  by  a  shower  betakes 
himself  resignedly  to  the  nearest  sheltering   archway.       He 
12 


178  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

would  say  nothing,  and  his  wife  might  say  what  she  liked. 
To  the  most  pathetic,  loving,  and  fervent  prayers,  he  would 
reply,  "  My  poor  wife,  you  are  looking  a  bit  pale  to-day." 

His  daughter  seemed  to  have  passed  entirely  out  of  his  mind  ; 
the  mention  of  her  name  brought  no  change  over  his  stony 
face  and  hard-set  mouth.  He  always  gave  the  same  vague 
answers  to  her  pleadings,  couched  in  almost  the  same  words, 
and  did  not  heed  his  wife's  white  face,  nor  the  tears  that  flowed 
down  her  cheeks. 

"  May  God  forgive  you,  as  I  do,  sir,"  she  said.  "  You  will 
have  need  of  mercy  some  day." 

Since  his  wife's  illness  had  begun  he  had  not  ventured  to 
make  use  of  his  formidable  "Tut,  tut,  tut,"  but  his  tyranny 
was  not  relaxed  one  whit  by  his  wife's  angelic  gentleness. 

Her  plain  face  was  growing  almost  beautiful  now  as  a  beauti- 
ful nature  showed  itself  more  and  more,  and  her  soul  grew 
absolute.  It  seemed  as  if  the  spirit  of  prayer  had  purified  and 
refined  the  homely  features — as  if  they  were  lit  up  by  some 
inner  light.  Which  of  us  has  not  known  such  faces  as  this, 
and  seen  their  final  transfiguration — the  triumph  of  a  soul  that 
has  dwelt  for  so  long  among  pure  and  lofty  thoughts  that  they 
set  their  seal  unmistakably  upon  the  roughest  lineaments  at 
last  ?  The  sight  of  this  transformation  wrought  by  the  physical 
suffering  which  stripped  the  soul  of  the  rags  of  humanity  that 
hid  it,  had  a  certain  effect,  however  feeble,  upon  that  man 
of  bronze — the  old  cooper.  A  stubborn  habit  of  silence  had 
succeeded  to  his  old  contemptuous  ways,  a  wish  to  keep  up 
his  dignity  as  a  father  of  a  family  was  apparently  the  motive 
for  this  course. 

The  faithful  Nanon  no  sooner  showed  herself  in  the  market- 
place than  people  began  to  rail  at  her  master  and  to  make 
jokes  at  his  expense  ;  but  however  loudly  public  opinion  con- 
demned old  Grandet,  the  maidservant,  jealous  for  the  honor 
of  the  family,  stoutly  defended  him. 

"Well,  now,"  she  would  say  to  those  who  spoke  ill  of  hei 


EUG&NIE    GRANDET.  179 

master,  "  don't  we  all  grow  harder  as  we  grow  older?  And 
would  you  have  him  different  from  other  people  ?  Just  hold 
your  lying  tongues.  Mademoiselle  lives  like  a  queen.  She 
is  all  by  herself  no  doubt,  but  she  likes  it ;  and  my  master 
and  mistress  have  their  very  good  reasons  for  what  they  do." 

At  last,  one  evening  towards  the  end  of  spring,  Mme.  Gran- 
det,  feeling  that  this  trouble,  even  more  than  her  illness,  was 
shortening  her  days,  and  that  any  farther-attempt  on  her  part 
to  obtain  forgiveness  for  Eugenie  was  hopeless,  confided  her 
troubles  to  the  Cruchots. 

"To  put  a  girl  of  twenty-two  on  a  diet  of  bread  and 
water  ! — — "  cried  the  President  de  Bonfons,  "  and  without 
just  and  sufficient  cause  !  Why,  that  constitutes  legal  cruelty; 
she  might  lodge  a  complaint  ;  in  as  much  as " 

''Come,  nephew,"  said  the  notary,  "that  is  enough  of 
your  law  court  jargon.  Be  easy,  madame ;  I  will  bring  this 
imprisonment  to  an  end  to-morrow." 

Eugenie  heard,  and  came  out  of  her  room. 

"  Gentlemen,"  she  said,  impelled  by  a  certain  pride,  "do 
nothing  in  this  matter,  I  beg  of  you.  My  father  is  master 
in  his  own  house,  and  so  long  as  I  live  under  his  roof  I  ought 
to  obey  him. v  No  one  has  any  right  to  criticise  his  conduct ; 
he  is  answerable  to  God,  and  to  God  alone.  If  you  have  any 
friendly  feeling  for  me,  I  entreat  you  to  say  nothing  whatever 
about  this.  If  you  expose  my  father  to  censure,  you  would 
lower  us  all  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  I  am  very  thankful  to 
you,  gentlemen,  for  the  interest  you  have  taken  in  me,  and 
you  will  oblige  me  still  farther  if  you  will  put  a  stop  to  the 
gossip  that  is  going  on  in  the  town.  I  only  heard  of  it  by 
accident." 

"She  is  right,"  said  Mme.  Grandet. 

"  Mademoiselle,  the  best  possible  way  to  stop  people's  talk 
would  be  to  set  you  at  liberty,"  said  the  old  notary  respect- 
fully ;  he  was  struck  with  the  beauty  which  solitude  and  love 
and  sadness  had  brought  into  Eugenie's  face. 


180  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

"  Well,  Eugenie,  leave  it  in  M.  Cruchot's  hands,  as  he 
seems  to  think  success  is  certain.  He  knows  your  father,  and 
he  knows,  too,  how  to  put  the  matter  before  him.  You  and 
your  father  must  be  reconciled  at  all  costs,  if  you  want  me  to 
be  happy  during  the  little  time  I  have  yet  to  live." 

The  next  morning  Grandet  went  out  to  take  a  certain  num- 
ber of  turns  round  the  little  garden,  a  habit  that  he  had  fallen 
into  during  Eugenie's  incarceration.  He  chose  to  take  the 
air  while  Eugenie  was  dressing;  and  when  he  had  reached  the 
great  walnut  tree,  he  stood  behind  it  for  a  few  moments  and 
looked  at  her  window.  He  watched  her  as  she  brushed  her 
long  hair,  and  there  was  a  sharp  struggle  doubtless  between 
his  natural  stubborn  will  and  a  longing  to  take  his  daughter  irr 
his  arms  and  kiss  her. 

He  would  often  go  to  sit  on  the  little  worm-eaten  bench 
where  Charles  an^Eugeme_Jiaii-^mejd^  to  love  each  other 
forever;  and  she,  his  daughter,  also  watched  Tier  father  fur- 
tively, or  looked  into  her  glass  and  saw  him  reflected  there, 
and  the  garden  and  the  bench.  If  he  rose  and  began  to  walk 
again,  she  went  to  sit  in  the  window.  It  was  pleasant  to  her 
to  be  there.  She  studied  the  bit  of  old  wall,  the  delicate 
sprays  of  wild  flowers  that  grew  in  its  crevices,  the  maiden- 
hair fern,  the  morning  glories,  and  a  little  plant  with  thick 
leaves  and  white  or  yellow  flowers,  a  sort  of  stone-crop  that 
grows  everywhere  among  the  vines  at  Saumur  and  Tours. 

Old  M.  Cruchot  came  early  on  a  bright  June  morning  and 
found  the  vine-grower  sitting  on  the  little  bench  with  his  back 
against  the  wall,  absorbed  in  watching  his  daughter. 

"What  can  I  do  for  you,  M.  Cruchot?"  he  asked,  as  he 
became  aware  of  the  notary's  presence. 

"  I  have  come  about  a  matter  of  business." 

"  Aha  !     Have  you  some  gold  to  exchange  for  crowns  ?  " 

"  No,  no.  It  is  not  a  question  of  money  this  time,  but  of 
your  daughter  Eugenie.  Everybody  is  talking  about  you 
and  her." 


EUGENIE   GRAND ET.  181 

"What  business  is  it  of  theirs?  A  man's  house  is  his 
castle." 

"  Just  so;  and  a  man  can  kill  himself  if  he  has  a  mind 
to,  or  he  can  do  worse,  he  can  throw  his  money  out  of  the 
windows." 

"What?" 

"Eh!  but  your  wife  is  very  ill,  my  friend.  You  ought 
even  to  call  in  M.  Bergerin,  her  life  is  in  danger.  If  she  were 
to  die  for  want  of  proper  care,  you  would  hear  of  it,  I 
am  sure." 

"Tut,  tut,  tut!"  you  know  what  is  the  matter  with  her, 
and  when  once  one  of  these  doctors  sets  foot  in  your  house, 
they  will  come  five  or  six  times  a  day." 

"After  all,  Grandet,  you  will  do  as  you  think  best.  We 
are  old  friends ;  there  is  no  one  in  all  Saumur  who  lias  your 
interests  more  at  heart  than  I,  so  it  was  only  my  duty  to  let 
you  know  this.  Whatever  happens,  you  are  responsible,  and 
you  understand  your  own  business,  so  there  it  is.  Besides, 
that  was  not  what  I  came  to  speak  about.  There  is  something 
else  more  serious  for  you,  perhaps ;  for,  after  all,  you  do  not 
wish  to  kill  your  wife,  she  is  too  useful  to  you.  Just  think 
what  your  position  would  be  if  anything  happened  to  Mme. 
Grandet  ;  you  would  have  your  daughter  to  face.  You  would 
have  to  give  an  account  to  Eugenie  of  her  mother's  share  of 
your  joint  estate;  and  if  she  chose,  your  daughter  might  de- 
mand her  mother's  fortune,  for  she,  and  not  you,  will  succeed 
to  it ;  and  in  that  case  you  might  have  to  sell  Froidfond." 

Cruchot's  words  were  like  a  bolt  from  the  blue  ;  for  much 
as  the  worthy  cooper  knew  about  business,  he  knew  very  little 
law.  The  idea  of  a  forced  sale  had  never  occurred  to 
him. 

"  So  I  should  strongly  recommend  you  to  treat  her  kindly," 
the  notary  concluded. 

"  But  do  you  know  what  she  has  done,  Cruchot  ?  " 

"No.     What  was  it?"  asked  the  notary;  he  felt  curious  to 


182  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

know  the  reason  of  the  quarrel,  and  a  confidence  from  old 
Grandet  was  an  interesting  novelty. 

"  She  has  given  away  her  gold." 

"  Oh  !  well,  it  belonged  to  her,  didn't  it?  " 

"  That  is  what  they  all  say  !  "  said  Grandet,  letting  his  arms 
fall  with  a  tragic  gesture. 

''And  for  a  trifle  like  that  you  would  shut  yourself  out 
from  all  hope  of  any  concessions  which  you  will  want  her  to 
make  if  her  mother  dies?" 

"Ah  !  do  you  call  six  thousand  francs  in  gold  a  trifle?" 

"  Eh  !  my  old  friend,  have  you  any  idea  what  it  will  cost 
you  to  have  your  property  valued  and  divided  if  Eugenie 
should  compel  you  to  do  so?" 

"What  would  it  cost?" 

"Two,  three,  or  even  four  thousand  francs.  How  could 
you  know  what  it  was  worth  unless  you  put  it  up  to  public 
auction?     While  if  you  come  to  an  understanding " 

"  By  my  father's  pruning  hook!"  cried  the  vine-grower, 
sinking  back,  and  turning  quite  pale.  "  We  will  see  about 
this,  Cruchot." 

After  a  moment  of  agony  or  of  dumb  bewilderment, 
Grandet  spoke,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  his  neighbor's  face. 
"Life  is  very  hard,"  he  said.  "It  is  full  of  troubles.  Cru- 
chot," he  went  on,  earnestly,  "  you  are  incapable  of  deceiving 
me ;  give  me  your  word  of  honor  that  this  ditty  of  yours  has 
a  solid  foundation.  Let  me  look  at  the  Code;  I  want  to  see 
the  Code!" 

"  My  poor  friend,"  said  the  notary,  "I  ought  to  understand 
my  own  profession." 

"Then  it  is  really  true?  I  shall  be  plundered,  cheated, 
robbed,  and  murdered  by  my  own  daughter !  " 

"  She  is  her  mother's  heiress." 

"  Then  what  is  the  good  of  having  children  ?  Oh  !  my 
wife,  I  love  my  wife ;  luckily,  she  has  a  sound  constitution ; 
she  is  a  La  Bertelliere." 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  183 

"  She  has  not  a  month  to  live." 

The  cooper  struck  his  forehead,  took  a  few  paces,  and  then 
came  back  again. 

"  What  is  to  be  done?  "  he  demanded  of  Cruchot,  with  a 
tragic  expression  on  his  face. 

"  Well,  perhaps  Eugenie  might  simply  give  up  her  claims 
to  her  mother's  property.  You  do  not  mean  to  disinherit  her, 
do  you  ?  But  do  not  treat  her  harshly  if  you  want  her  to 
make  a  concession  of  that  kind.  I  am  speaking  against  my 
own  interests,  my  friend.  How  do  I  make  a  living  but  by 
drawing  up  inventories  and  conveyances  and  deeds  of  arrange- 
ment and  by  winding  up  estates?  " 

"  We  shall  see,  we  shall  see.  Let  us  say  no  more  about  this 
now,  Cruchot.  You  have  wrung  my  very  soul.  Have  you 
taken  any  gold  lately?  " 

"  No  ;  but  I  have  some  old  louis,  nine  or  ten  perhaps, 
which  you  can  have.  Look  here,  my  good  friend,  make  it  up 
with  Eugenie  ;  all  Saumur  is  pointing  a  finger  at  you." 

"  The  rogues  !  " 

"  Well,  consols  have  risen  to  ninety-nine,  so  you  should  be 
satisfied  for  once  in  your  life." 

"  At  ninety-nine,  Cruchot?" 
/'Yes." 

<l  Hey !  hey  !  ninety-nine  !  "  the  old  man  said,  as  he  went 
with  the  notary  to  the  street-door.  He  felt  too  much  agitated 
by  what  he  had  just  heard  to  stay  quietly  at  home ;  so  he  went 
up  to  his  wife's  room. 

"  Come,  mother,  you  may  spend  the  day  with  your  daughter, 
I  am  going  to  Froidfond.  Be  good,  both  of  you,  while  I  am 
away.  This  is  our  wedding-day,  dear  wife.  Stay  !  here  are 
ten  crowns  for  you,  for  the  Fdte-Dieu  procession  ;  you  have 
wanted  to  give  it  for  long  enough.  Take  a  holiday  !  have 
iome  fun,  keep  up  your  spirits  and  get  well.      Vive  la  joie  /" 

He  threw  down  ten  crowns  of  six  francs  each  upon  the  bed, 
took  her  face  in  his  hands,  and  kissed  her  on  the  forehead. 


184  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

"  You  are  feeling  better,  dear  wife,  are  you  not?  " 

"But  how  can  you  think  of  receiving  God,  who  forgives, 
into  your  house,  when  you  have  shut  your  heart  against  your 
daughter?  "  she  said,  with  deep  feeling  in  her  voice. 

"Tut,  tut,  tut !  "  said  the  father  soothingly;  "we  will  see 
about  that." 

"Merciful  heaven!  Eugenie!"  called  the  mother,  her 
face  flushed  with  joy ;  "  Eugenie,  come  and  give  your  father 
a  kiss,  you  are  forgiven  !  "  But  her  worthy  father  had  van- 
ished. He  fled  with  all  his  might  in- the  direction  of  his 
vineyards,  where  he  set  himself  to  the  task  of  constructing 
his  new  world  out  of  this  chaos  of  strange  ideas. 

Grandet  had  just  entered  upon  his  sixty-seventh  year. 
Avarice  had  gained  a  stronger  hold  upon  him  during  the  past 
two  years  of  his  life  ;  indeed,  ail  lasting  passions  grow  with 
man's  growth ;  and  it  had  come  to  pass  with  him,  as  with  all 
men  whose  lives  are  ruled  by  one  master-idea,  that  he  clung 
with  all  the  force  of  his  imagination  to  the  symbol  which 
represented  that  idea  for  him.  Gold — to  have  gold,  that  he 
might  see  and  touch  it,  had  become  with  him  a  perfect  mono- 
mania. His  disposition  to  tyrannize  had  also  grown  with  his 
love  of  money,  and  it  seemed  to  him  to  be  monstrous  that  he 
should  be  called  upon  to  give  up  the  least  portion  of  his  prop- 
erty on  the  death  of  his  wife.  Was  he  to  render  an  account 
of  her  fortune,  and  to  have  an  inventory  drawn  up  of  every- 
thing he  possessed — personalty  and  real  estate,  and  put  it  all 
up  to  auction  ? 

"  That  would  be  stark  ruin,"  he  said  aloud  to  himself,  as  he 
stood  among  his  vines  and  examined  their  stems. 

He  made  up  his  mind  at  last,  and  came  back  to  Saumur  at 
dinner-time  fully  determined  on  his  course.  He  would  humor 
Eugenie,  and  coax  and  cajole  her  so  that  he  might  die  royally, 
keeping  the  control  of  his  millions  in  his  hands  until  his 
latest  sigh.  It  happened  that  he  let  himself  in  with  his 
master  key  ;  he  crept  noiselessly  as  a  wolf  up  the  stairs  to  his 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  185 

wife's  room,  which  he  entered  just  as  Eugenie  was  setting  the 
dressing-case,  in  all  its  golden  glory,  upon  her  mother's  bed. 
The  two  women  had  stolen  a  pleasure  in  Grandet's  absence  ; 
they  were  looking  at  the  portraits  and  tracing  out  Charles' 
features  in  his  mother's  likeness. 

"It  is  just  his  forehead  and  his  mouth  !  "  Eugenie  was 
saying,  as  the  vine-grower  opened  the  door. 

Mme.  Grandet  saw  how  her  husband's  eyes  darted  upon  the 
gold.      "Oh  !  God,  have  pity  upon  us  !  "  she  cried. 

The  vine-grower  seized  upon  the  dressing-case  as  a  tiger 
might  spring  upon  a  sleeping  child. 

"  What  may  this  be?  "  he  said,  carrying  off  the  treasure  to 
the  window,  where  he  ensconced  himself  with  it.  "  Gold  ! 
solid  gold  !"  he  cried,  "and  plenty  of  it  too;  there  is  a 
couple  of  pounds'  weight  here.  Aha !  so  this  was  what_ 
Charles  gave  you  in  exchange  for  your  pretty  goloT^eces? 
Why  dicTyotrnot  teTTIme"?  It  was  a^gooH  stroke  of  business, 
little  girl.  You  are  your  father's  own  daughter,  I  see. 
(Eugenie  trembled  from  head  to  foot.)  This  belongs  to 
Charles,  doesn't  it  ?  "  the  good  man  went  on. 

"Yes,  father;  it  is  not  mine.  Tjiat  case  is  a  jeered 
trust." 

"Tut,  tut,  tut!  he  has  gone  off  with  your  money;  you 
ought  to  make  good  the  loss  of  your  little  treasure." 

"Oh!  father! " 

The  old  man  had  taken  out  his  pocket-knife,  with  a  view  to 
wrenching  away  a  plate  of  the  precious  metal,  and  for  the 
moment  had  been  obliged  to  lay  the  case  on  a  chair  beside 
him.  Eugenie  sprang  forward  to  secure  her  treasure  ;  but  the 
cooper,  who  had  kept  an  eye  upon  his  daughter  as  well  as 
upon  the  casket,  put  out  his  arm  to  prevent  this,  and  thrust 
her  back  so  roughly  that  she  fell  on  to  the  bed. 

"  Sir  !  sir  !  "  cried  the  mother,  rising  and  sitting  upright. 

Grandet  had  drawn  out  his  knife,  and  was  about  to  insert 
the  blade  beneath  the  plate. 

G 


186  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

"Father  !  "  cried  Eugenie,  going  down  on  her  knees  and 
dragging  herself  nearer  to  him  as  she  knelt;  "  father,  in  the 
name  of  all  the  saints,  and  the  Holy  Virgin,  for  the  sake  of 
Christ  who  died  on  the  cross,  for  your  own  soul's  salvation, 
father,  if  you  have  any  regard  for  my  life,  do  not  touch  it ! 
The  case  is  not  yours,  and  it  is  not  mine.  It  belongs  to  an 
unhappy  kinsman,  who  gave  it  into  my  keeping,  and  I  ought 
to  give  it  back  to  him  untouched." 

"What  do  you  look  at  it  for  if  it  is  a  deposit?  Looking 
at  it  is  worse  than  touching  it." 

"Do  not  pull  it  to  pieces,  father!"  You  will  bring  dis- 
honor upon  me.     Father  !  do  you  hear  me?" 

"  For  pity's  sake,  sir !  "  entreated  the  mother. 

"Father!" 

The  shrill  cry  rang  through  the  house  and  brought  the 
frightened  Nanon  upstairs.  Eugenie  caught  up  a  knife  that 
lay  within  her  reach. 

"Well?"  said  Grandet,  calmly,  with  a  cold  smile  on 
his  lips. 

"  Sir  !  you  are  killing  me  !  "  said  the  mother. 

"  Father,  if  you  cut  away  a  single  scrap  of  gold,  I  shall 
stab  myself  with  this  knife.  It  is  your  doing  that  my  mother 
is  dying,  and  now  my  death  will  also  be  laid  at  your  door. 
It  shall  be  wound  for  wound." 

Grandet  held  his  knife  suspended  above  the  case,  looked 
at  his  daughter,  and  hesitated. 

"  Would  you  really  do  it,  Eugenie?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  sir  !  "  said  the  mother. 

"  She  would  do  as  she  says,"  cried  Nanon.  "Do  be  sen- 
sible, sir,  for  once  in  your  life." 

The  cooper  wavered  for  a  moment,  looking  first  at  the  gold 
and  then  at  his  daughter. 

Mme.  Grandet  fainted. 

"There  !  sir,  you  see,  the  mistress  is  dying,"  cried  Nanon. 

''  There  !  there  !  child,  do  not  let  us  fall  out  about  a  box. 


EUG&NIE   GRAND ET.  187 

Just  take  it  back!"  cried  the  cooper  hastily,  throwing  the 
case  on  to  the  bed.  "  And,  Nanon,  go  for  M.  Bergerin. 
Come!  come!  mother,"  he  said,  and  he  kissed  his  wife's 
hand;  "never  mind,  there!  there!  we  have  made  it  up, 
haven't  we,  little  girl?     No  more  dry  bread;  you  shall  eat 

whatever  you  like Ah  !  she  is  opening  her  eyes.     Well, 

now,  little  mother,  dear  little  mother,  don't  take  on  so  ! 
Look  !  I  am  going  to  kiss  Eugenie  !  She  loves  her  cousin, 
does  she?  She  shall  marry  him  if  she  likes;  she  shall  keep 
his  little  case  for  him.  But  you  must  live  for  a  long  while 
yet,  my  poor  wife  !  Come  !  turn  your  head  a  little.  Listen  ! 
you  shall  have  the  finest  altar  at  the  Fete-Dieu  that  has  ever 
been  seen  in  Saumur." 

■'.'  Oh  !  man  Dieu  /  how  can  you  treat  your  wife  and  daugh- 
ter in  this  way  1  "  moaned  Mme.  Grandet. 

"  I  will  never  do  so  again,  never  again  !  "  cried  the  cooper. 
"  You  shall  see,  my  poor  wife." 

He  went  to  his  strong  room  and  returned  with  a  handful  of 
louis  d'or,  which  he  scattered  on  the  coverlet. 

"There!  Eugenie,  there!  wife,  those  are  for  you,"  he 
said,  fingering  the  gold  coins  as  they  lay.  "Come!  cheer 
up,  and  get  well,  you  shall  want  for  nothing,  neither  you  nor 
Eugenie.  There  are  a  hundred  louis  for  her.  You  will  not 
give  them  away,  will  you,  eh,  Eugenie  ?  " 

Mme.  Grandet  and  her  daughter  gazed  at  each  other  in 
amazement. 

"  Take  back  the  money,  father ;  we  want  nothing,  nothing 
but  your  love." 

il  Oh  !  well,  just  as  you  like,"  he  said,  as  he  pocketed  the 
louis,  "  let  us  live  together  like  good  friends.  Let  us  all  go 
down  to  the  dining-room  and  have  dinner,  and  play  loto  every 
evening,  and  put  our  two  sous  into  the  popl,  and  be  as  merry 
as  the  maids.     Eh  !  my  wife?  " 

"  Alas  !  how  I  wish  that  I  could,  if  you  would  like  it,"  said 
the  dying  woman,  "but  I  am  not  strong  enough  to  get  up,** 


188  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

"  Poor  mother  !  "  said  the  cooper,  "  you  do  not  know  how 
much  I  love  you ;  and  you  too,  child  !  " 

He  drew  his  daughter  to  him  and  embraced  her  with  fervor. 

"  Oh  !  how  pleasant  it  is  to  kiss  one's  daughter  after  a 
squabble,  my  little  girl !  There  !  mother,  do  you  see?  We 
are  quite  at  one  again  now.  Just  go  and  lock  that  away,"  he 
said  to  Eugenie,  as  he  pointed  to  the  case.  "  There  !  there  ! 
don't  be  frightened;  I  will  never  say  another  word  to  you 
about  it." 

M.  Bergerin,  who  was  regarded  as  .the  cleverest  doctor  in 
Saumur,  came  before  very  long.  He  told  Grandet  plainly 
after  the  interview  that  the  patient  was  very  seriously  ill ; 
that  any- excitement  might  be  fatal  to  her;  that  with  a  light 
diet,  perfect  tranquillity,  and  the  most  constant  care,  her  life 
might  possibly  be  prolonged  until  the  end  of  the  autumn. 

"  Will  it  be  an  expensive  illnessJLH  asked  Grandet.  "  Will 
she  want  a  lot  of  physic  ?  " 

"  Not  much  physic,  but  very  careful  nursing,"  answered 
the  doctor,  who  could  not  help  smiling. 

"After  all,  M.  Bergerin,  you  are  a  man  of  honor,"  said 
Grandet  uneasily.  "I  can  depend  upon  you,  can  I  not? 
Come  and  see  my  wife  whenever  and  as  often  as  you  think  it 
really  necessary.  Preserve  her  life.  My  good  wife — I  am 
very  fond  of  her,  you  see,  though  I  may  not  show  it ;  it  is 
all  shut  up  inside  me,  and  I  am  one  that  takes  things  terribly 
to  heart ;  I  am  in  trouble  too.  It  all  began  with  my  brother's 
death ;  I  am  spending,  oh  ! — heaps  of  money  in  Paris  for 
him — the  very  eyes  out  of  my  head,  in  fact,  and  it  seems  as 
if  there  were  no  end  to  it.  Good-day,  sir.  If  you  can  save 
my  wife,  save  her,  even  if  it  takes  a  hundred  or  two  hundred 
francs." 

In  spite  of  Grandet's  fervent  wishes  that  his  wife  might  be 
restored  to  health,  for  this  question  of  the  inheritance  was 
like  a  foretaste  of  death  for  him ;  in  spite  of  his  readiness  to 
fulfill  the  least  wishes  of  the  astonished  mother  and  daughter 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  189 

in  every  possible  way  ;  in  spite  of  Eugenie's  tenderest  and  most 
devoted  care,  it  was  evident  that  Mme.  Grandet's  life  was 
rapidly  drawing  to  a  close.  Day  by  day  she  grew  weaker, 
and,  as  often  happens  at  her  time  of  life,  she  had  no  strength 
to  resist  the  disease  that  was  wasting  her  away.  She  seemed 
to  have  no  more  vitality  than  the  autumn  leaves ;  and  as  the 
sunlight  shining  through  the  leaves  turns  them  to  gold,  so  she 
seemed- to  be  transformed  by  the  light  of  heaven.  Her  death 
was  a  fitting  close  to  her  life,  a  death  wholly  Christian ;  is 
not  that  saying  that  it  was  sublime  ?  Her  love  for  her  daugh- 
ter, her  meek  virtues,  her  angelic  patience,  had  never  shone 
more  brightly  than  in  that  month  of  October,  1822,  when  she 
passed  away.  All  through  her  illness  she  had  never  uttered 
the  slightest  complaint,  and  her  spotless  soul  left  earth  for 
heaven  with  but  one  regret — for  the  daughter  whose  sweet 
companionship  had  been  the  solace  of  her  dreary  life,  and  for 
whom  her  dying  eyes  foresaw  troubles  and  sorrows  manifold. 
She  trembled  at  the  thought  of  this  lamb,  spotless  as  she  her- 
self was,  left  alone  in  the  world  among  selfish  beings  who 
sought  to  despoil  her  of  her  fleece,  her  treasure. 

"There  is  no  happiness  save  in  heaven,"  she  said  just  be- 
fore she  died  ;   "  you  will  know  that  one  day,  my  child." 

On  the  morrow  after  her  mother's  death,  it  seemed  to  Eu- 
genie that  she  had  yet  one  more  reason  for  clinging  fondly  to 
the  old  house  where  she  had  been  born,  and  where  she  had  ** 
found  life  so  hard  of  late — it  became  for  her  the  place  where 
her  mother  had  died.  She  could  not  see  the  old  chair  set 
on  little  blocks  of  wood,  the  place  by  the  window  where 
her  mother  used  to  sit,  without  shedding  tears.  Her  father 
showed  her  such  tenderness,  and  took  such  care  of  her,  that 
she  began  to  think  that  she  had  never  understood  his  nature  ; 
he  used  to  come  to  her  room  and  take  her  down  to  breakfast 
on  his  arm,  and  sit  looking  at  her  for  whole  hours  with  some- 
thing almost  like  kindness  in  his  eyes,  with  the  same  brooding 
look  that  he  gave  his  gold.     Indeed,  the  old  cooper  almost 


190  EUGENIE   GRANDET. 

trembled  before  his  daughter,  and  was  altogether  so  unlike 
himself,  that  Nanon  and  the  Cruchotins  wondered  at  these 
signs  of  weakness,  and  set  it  down  to  his  advanced  age  ;  they 
began  to  fear  that  the  old  man's  mind  was  giving  way.  But 
when  the  day  came  on  which  the  family  began  to  wear  their 
mourning,  M.  Cruchot,  who  alone  was  in  his  client's  confi- 
dence, was  invited  to  dinner,  and  these  mysteries  were  ex- 
plained. Grandet  waited  till  the  table  had  been  cleared,  and 
the  doors  carefully  shut. 

Then  he  began:  "  My  dear  child  you  are  your  mother's 
heiress,  and  there  are  some  little  matters  of  business  that  we 
must  settle  between  us.     Is  that  not  so,  eh,  Cruchot  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Is  it  really  pressing  ;  must  it  be  settled  to-day,  father?" 

"Yes,  yes,  little  girl.  I  could  not  endure  this  suspense  any 
longer,  and  I  am  sure  you  would  not  make  things  hard  for  me." 

"Oh  !  father " 

"Well,  then,  everything  must  be  decided  to-night." 

"  Then  what  do  you  want  me  to  do  ?  " 

"  Well,  little  girl,  it  is  not  for  me  to  tell  you.  You  tell 
her,  Cruchot." 

"  Mademoiselle,  your  father  wants  neither  to  divide  nor  to 
sell  his  property,  nor  to  pay  a  heavy  succession  duty  upon  the 
ready  money  he  may  happen  to  have  just  now.  So  if  these 
complications  are  to  be  avoided,  there  must  be  no  inventory 
made  out,  and  all  the  property  must  remain  undivided  for  the 
present " 

"Cruchot,  are  you  quite  sure  of  what  you  are  saying  that 
you  talk  in  this  way  before  a  child  ?  " 

"  Let  me  say  what  I  have  to  say,  Grandet." 

"  Yes,  yes,  my  friend.  Neither  you  nor  my  daughter  would 
plunder  me.  You  would  not  plunder  me,  would  you,  little 
girl?" 

"But  what  am  I  to  do,  M.  Cruchot?"  asked  Eugenie, 
losing  patience. 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  191 

"  Well,"  said  the  notary,  "you  must  sign  this  deed,  by 
which  you  renounce  your  claims  to  your  mother's  property; 
the  property  would  be  secured  to  you,  but  your  father  would 
have  the  use  of  it  for  his  life,  and  there  would  be  no  need  to 
make  a  division  now." 

"I  understand  nothing  of  all  this  that  you  are  saying," 
Eugenie  answered;  "give  me  the  deed,  and  show  me  where  I 
am  to  sign  my  name." 

Grandet  looked  from  the  document  to  his  daughter,  and 
again  from  his  daughter  to  the  document.  His  agitation  was 
so  great  that  he  actually  wiped  several  drops  of  perspiration 
from  his  forehead. 

"I  would  much  rather  you  simply  waived  all  claim  tO-your 
poor  dear  mother's  property,  little  girl,"  he  broke  in,  "in- 
stead of  signing  that  deed.  It  will  cost  a  lot  to  register  it. 
I  would  rather  you  renounced  your  claims  and  trusted  to  me 
for  the  future.  I  would  allow  you  a  good  round  sum,  say  a 
hundred  francs  every  month.     You  could  pay  for  masses  then, 

you  see ;  you  could  have  masses  said  for  any  one  that Eh  ? 

A  hundred  francs  (in  livres)  every  month?" 

"  I  will  do  just  as  you  like,  father." 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  the  notary,  "it  is  my  duty  to  point 
out  to  you  that  you  are  robbing  yourself  without  guarantee " 

"Eh/  mon  Dieu  /"  she  answered.  "What  does  that 
matter  to  me?" 

"Do  be  quiet,  Cruchot.  So  it  is  settled,  quite  settled  !  " 
cried  Grandet,  taking  his  daughter's  hand  and  striking  his 
own  into  it.  "You  will  not  go  back  from  your  word, 
Eugenie  ?     You  are  a  good  girl,  hein  !  " 

"Oh!  father " 

In  his  joy  he  embraced  his  daughter,  almost  suffocating  her 
as  he  did  so. 

"There!  child,  you  have  given  fresh  life  to  your  father; 
but  you  are  only  giving  him  what  he  gave  you,  so  we  are  quits. 
This  is  how  business  ought  to  be  conducted,  and  life  is  a  busi- 


192  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

ness  transaction.  Bless  you  !  You  are  a  good  girl,  and  one 
that  really  loves  her  old  father.  You  can  do  as  you  like  now. 
Then  good-bye  till  to-morrow,  Cruchot,"  he  added,  turning 
to  the  horrified  notary.  "You  will  see  that  the  deed  of 
renunciation  is  properly  drawn  up  for  the  clerk  of  the  court." 

By  noon  next  day  the  declaration  was  drawn  up,  and 
Eugdnie  herself  signed  away  all  her  rights  to  her  heritage. 
Yet  a  year  slipped  by,  and  the  cooper  had  not  kept  his 
promise,  and  Eugenie  had  not  received  a  sou  of  the  monthly 
income  which  was  to  have  been  hers;  when  Eugenie  spoke  to 
him  about  it,  half-laughingly,  he  could  not  help  blushing;  he 
hurried  up  to  his  room,  and  when  he  came  down  again  he 
handed  her  about  a  third  of  the  jewelry  which  he  had  pur- 
chased of  his  nephew. 

"There!  child,"  he  said,  with  a  certain  sarcastic  ring  in 
his  voice;  "will  you  take  these  for  your  twelve  hundred 
francs?" 

"Oh  !  father,  really?     Will  you  really  give  them  to  me?" 

"You  shall  have  as  much  next  year  again,"  said  he,  fling- 
ing it  into  her  lap;  "  and  so,  before  very  long,  you  will  have 
all  his  trinkets,"  he  added,  rubbing  his  hands.  He  had  made 
a  very  good  bargain,  thanks  to  his  daughter's  sentiment  about 
the  jewelry,  and  was  in  high  good-humor. 

Yet,  although  the  old  man  was  still  hale  and  vigorous,  he 
began  to  see  that  he  must  take  his  daughter  into  his  confi- 
dence, and  that  she  must  learn  to  manage  his  concerns.  So 
with  this  end  in  view  he  required  her  to  be  present  while  he 
gave  out  the  daily  stores,  and  for  two  years  he  made  her  re- 
ceive the  portion  of  the  rent  which  was  paid  in  kind.  Grad- 
ually she  came  to  know  the  names  of  the  vineyards  and  farms; 
he  took  her  with  him  when  he  visited  his  tenants.  By  the 
end  of  the  third  year  he  considered  the  initiation  was  com- 
plete;  and,  in  truth,  she  had  fallen  into  his  ways  unquestion- 
ingly,  till  it  had  become  a  matter  of  habit  with  her  to  do  as 
her  father  had  done  before  her.     He  had  no  further  doubts, 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  193 

gave  over  the  keys  of  the  storeroom  into  her  keeping,  and 
installed  her  as  mistress  of  the  house. 

Five  years  went  by  in  this  way,  and  no  event  disturbed 
their  monotonous  existence.  Eugenie  and  her  father  lived  a 
life  of  methodical  routine  with  the  same  regularity  of  move- 
ment that  characterized  the  old  clock ;  doing  the  same  things 
at  the  same  hour  day  after  day,  year  after  year.  Every  one 
knew  that  there  had  been  a  profound  sorrow  in  Mile.  Gran- 
det's  life  ;  every  circle  in  Saumur  had  its  theories  of  this 
secret  trouble,  and  its  suspicions  as  to  the  state  of  the  heiress' 
heart,  but  she  never  let  fall  a  word  that  could  enlighten  any 
one  on  either  point. 

She  saw  no  one  but  the  three  Cruchots  and  a  few  of  their 
friends,  who  had  gradually  been  admitted  as  visitors  to  the 
house.  Under  their  instructions  she  had  mastered  the  game 
of  whist,  and  they  dropped  in  nearly  every  evening  for  a 
rubber.  In  the  year  1827  her  father  began  to  feel  the  infirmi- 
ties of  age,  and  was  obliged  to  take  her  still  farther  into  his 
confidence  ;  she  learned  the  full  extent  of  his  landed  posses- 
sions, and  was  recommended  in  all  cases  of  difficulty  to  refer 
to  the  notary  Cruchot,  whose  integrity  could  be  depended 
upon.  Grandet  reached  the  age  of  eighty-two,  and  towards 
the  end  of  the  year  had  a  paralytic  seizure,  from  which  he 
never  rallied.  M.  Bergerin  gave  him  up,  and  Eugenie  realized 
that  very  shortly  she  would  be  quite  alone  in  the  world ;  the 
thought  drew  her  more  closely  to  her  father ;  she  clung  to 
this  last  link  of  affection  that  bound  her  to  another  soul. 
Love  was  all  the  world  for  her,  as  it  is  for  all  women  who 
love ;  and  Charles  had  gone  out  of  her  world.  She  nursed 
her  father  with  sublime  devotion  ;  the  old  man's  intellect  had 
grown  feeble,  but  the  greed  of  gold  had  become  an  instinct 
which  survived  his  faculties. 

Grandet  died  as  he  had  lived.  Every  morning  during  that 
slow  death  he  had  himself  wheeled  across  his  room  to  a  place 
beside  the  fire,  whence  he  could  keep  the  door  of  his  cabinet 
13 


194  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

in  view  ;  on  the  other  side  of  the  door,  no  doubt,  lay  his 
hoarded  treasures  of  gold.  He  sat  there,  passive  and  motion- 
less ;  but  if  any  one  entered  the  room,  he  would  glance  un- 
easily at  the  newcomer,  and  then  at  the  door  with  its  sheath- 
ing of  iron  plates.  He  would  ask  the  meaning  of  every 
sound,  however  faint,  and,  to  the  notary's  amazement,  the. 
old  man  heard  the  dog  bark  in  the  yard  at  the  back  of  the 
house.  He  roused  from  this  apparent  stupor  at  the  proper 
hour  on  the  days  for  receiving  his  rents  and  dues,  for  settling 
accounts  with  his  vine-dressers,  and  giving  receipts.  Then 
he  shifted  his  armchair  round  on  its  casters,  until  he  faced  the 
door  of  his  cabinet,  and  his  daughter  was  called  upon  to  open 
it,  and  to  put  away  the  little  bags  of  money  in  neat  piles,  one 
upon  the  other.  He  would  watch  her  until  it  was  all  over 
and  the  door  was  locked  again  ;  and  as  soon  as  she  had  re- 
turned the  precious  key  to  him,  he  would  turn  round  noise- 
lessly and  take  up  his  old  position,  putting  the  key  in  his 
waistcoat  pocket,  where  he  felt  for  it  from  time  to  time. 

His  old  friend  the  notary  felt  sure  that  it  was  only  a  ques- 
tion of  time,  and  that  Eugenie  must  of  necessity  marry  his 
nephew  the  magistrate,  unless,  indeed,  Charles  Grandet  re- 
turned ;  so  he  redoubled  his  attentions.  He  came  every  day 
to  take  Grandet's  instructions,  went  at  his  bidding  to  Froid- 
fond,  to  farm  and  meadow  and  vineyard;  sold  vintages,  and 
exchanged  all  moneys  received  for  gold,  which  was  secretly 
sent  to  join  the  piles  of  bags  stored  up  in  the  cabinet. 

Then  death  came  up  close  at  last,  and  the  vine-grower's 
strong  frame  wrestled  with  the  Destroyer.  Even  in  those 
days  he  would  sit  as  usual  by  the  fire,  facing  the  door  of  his 
cabinet.  He  used  to  drag  off  the  blankets  that  they  wrapped 
round  him,  and  try  to  fold  them,  and  say  to  Nanon,  "  Lock 
that  up;  lock  that  up,  or  they  will  rob  me." 

So  long  as  he  could  open  his  eyes,  where  the  last  spark  of 
life  seemed  to  linger,  they  used  to  turn  at  once  to  the  door 
of   the  room  where  all   his  treasures  lay,  and  he  would  say 


EUGENIE    GRANDE T.  195 

to  his  daughter,  in  tones  that  seemed  to  thrill  with  a  panic 
of  fear— 

il  Are  they  there  still?" 

"Yes,  father." 

"  Keep  watch  over  the  gold  ! Let  me  see  the  gold,"  her 

father  would  say. 

Then  Eugenie  used  to  spread  out  the  louis  on  a  table  before 
him,  and  he  would  sit  for  whole  hours  with  his  eyes  fixed  on 
the  louis  in  an  unseeing  stare,  like  that  of  a  child  who  begins 
to  see  for  the  first  time  ;  and  sometimes  a  weak  imbecile  smile, 
painful  to  see,  would  steal  across  his  features. 

"  That  warms  me!"  he  muttered  more  than  once,  and  his 
face  expressed  a  perfect  content. 

When  the  cure  came  to  administer  the  sacrament,  all  the 
life  seemed  to  have  died  out  of  the  miser's  eyes,  but  they  lit 
up  for  the  first  time  for  many  hours  at  the  sight  of  the  silver 
crucifix,  the  candlesticks,  and  holy  water  vessel,  all  of  silver ; 
he  fixed  his  gaze  on  the  precious  metal,  and  the  wen  twitched 
for  the  last  time. 

As  the  priest  held  the  gilded  crucifix  above  him  that  the 
image  of  Christ  might  be  laid  to  his  lips,  he  made  a  frightful 
effort  to  clutch  it — a  last  effort  which-  cost  him  his  life.  He 
called  to  Eugenie,  who  saw  nothing;  she  was  kneeling  beside 
him,  bathing  in  tears  the  hand  that  was  growing  cold  already. 
"Give  me  your  blessing,  father,"  she  entreated.  "Be  very 
careful  !  "  the  last  words  came  from  him  ;  "one  day  yon  will 
render  an  account  to  me  of  everything  here  below."  Which 
utterance  clearly  shows  that  a  miser  should  adopt  Christianity 
as  his  religion. 

So  Eugenie  Grandet  was  now  alone  in  jbe— world,  and 
her  house  wa77etVto**TTer" desolate'  "There  was  no  one  but 
Nanon  with  whom  she  couloTtaTircJVer  her  troubles  ;  she  could 
look  into  no  other  eyes  and  find  a  response  to  them  ;  big 
J^Janon  was  the  only  human  being  who  loved  her  for  herself. 


196  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

For  Eugenie,  Nanon  was  a  providence;  she  was  no  longer  a 
servant,  she  was  an  humble  friend. 

M.  Cruchot  informed  Eugenie  that  she  had  three  hundred 
thousand  livres  a  year,  derived  from  landed  property  in  and 
around  Saumur,  besides  six  millions  in  the  three  per  cents, 
(invested  when  the  funds  were  at  sixty  francs,  whereas  they 
now  stood  at  seventy-seven),  and  in  ready  money  two  millions 
in  gold,  and  a  hundred  thousand  francs  in  silver,  without 
counting  any  arrears  that  were  due.  Altogether  her  property 
amounted  to  about  seventeen  million  .francs. 

"  Where  can  my  cousin  be?  "  she  said  to  herself. 

On  the  day  when  M.  Cruchot  laid  these  facts  before  his 
new  client,  together  with  the  information  that  the  estate  was 
now  clear  and  free  from  all  outstanding  liabilities,  Eugenie 
and  Nanon  sat  on  either  side  of  the  hearth,  in  the  parlor, 
now  so  empty  and  so  full  of  memories ;  everything  recalled 
past  days,  from  her  mother's  chair  set  on  its  wooden  blocks  to 
the  glass  tumbler  out  of  which  her  cousin  once  drank. 

"Nanon,  we  are  alone,  you  and  I." 

"  Yes,  mamselle  ;  if  I  only  knew  where  he  was,  the  charm- 
ing young  gentleman,  I  would  set  off  on  foot  to  find 
him." 

"  The  sea  lies  between  us,"  said  Eugenie. 

While  the  poor  lonely  heiress,  with  her  faithful  old  servant 
for  company,  was  shedding  tears  in  the  cold,  dark^house, 
which  was  all  the  world  she  knew,  men  tiBcecT from  Orleans 
to  Nantes  of  nothing  but  Mile.  Grandet  and  her  seventeen 
millions.  One  of  her  first  acts  was  to  settle  a  pension  of 
twelve  hundred  francs  on  Nanon,  who,  possessing  already  an 
income  of  six  hundred  francs  of  her  own,  at  once  became  a 
great  match.  In  less  than  a  month  she  exchanged  her  condi- 
tion of  spinster  for  that  of  wife,  at  the  instance  and  through 
the  persuasion  of  Antoine  Cornoiller,  who  was  promoted  to 
the  position  of  bailiff  and  keeper  to  Mile.  Grandet.     Mme, 


HE    WOULD    SIT    FOR    WHOLE    HOURS     WITH     HIS     EYES    FIXED 
ON    THE    LOUIS. 


EUG&NIE    GRAND ET.  197 

Cornoiller  had  an  immense  advantage  over  her  contempora- 
ries ;  'her  large  features  had  stood  the  test  of  time  better  than 
those  of  many  a  comelier  woman.  She'  might  be  fifty-nine 
years  of  age,  but  she  did  not  look  more  than  forty ;  thanks  to 
an  almost  monastic  regimen,  she  possessed  rugged  health  and 
a  high  color,  time  seemed  'to  have  no  effect  on  her,  and  per- 
haps she  had  never  looked  so  well  in  her  life  as  she  did  on 
her  wedding-day.  She  had  the  compensating  qualities  of  her 
style  of  ugliness ;  she  was  tall,  stout,  and  strong ;  her  face 
wore  an  indestructible  expression  of  good-humor,  and  Cor- 
noiller's  lot  seemed  an  enviable  one  to  many  beholders. 

"Fast  color,"  said  the  draper. 

"  She  might  have  a  family  yet,"  said  the  dry-salter  ;  "she 
is  as  well  preserved  as  if  she  had  been  kept  in  brine,  asking 
your  pardon." 

"  She  is  rich;  that  fellow  Cornoiller  has  done  a  good  day's 
work,"  said  another  neighbor. 

When  Nanon  left  the  old  house  and  went  down  the  crooked 
street  on  her  way  to  the  parish  church,  she  met  with  nothing 
but  congratulations  and  good-wishes.  Nanon  was  very  popular 
with  her  neighbors.  Eugenie  gave  her  three  dozen  spoons 
and  forks  as  a  wedding  present.  Cornoiller,  quite  overcome 
with  such  munificence,  spoke  of  his  mistress  with  tears  in  his 
eyes ;  he  would  have  let  himself  be  cut  in  pieces  for  her. 
Mme.  Cornoiller  became  Eugenie's  confidential  servant  ;  she 
was  not  only  married,  and  had  a  husband  of  her  own,  her 
dignity  was  yet  further  increased,  her  happiness  was  doubled. 
She  had  at  last  a  storeroom  and  a  bunch  of  keys  ;  shi  too 
gave  out  provisions  just  as  her  late  master  used  to  do.  Then 
she  had  two  subordinates — a  cook  and  a  waiting-woman,  who 
took  charge  of  the  house  linen  and  made  Mile.  Grandet's 
dresses.  As  for  Cornoiller,  he  combined  the  functions  of 
forester  and  steward.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  cook  and 
waiting-woman  of  Nanon's  choosing  were  real  domestic  treas- 
ures.    The  tenants  scarcely  noticed  the  death  of  their  late 


198  EUG&NIE   GRANDET. 

landlord  ;  they  were  thoroughly  broken  in  to  a  severe  disci- 
pline, and  M.  and  Mme.  Cornoiller's  reign  was  no  whit  less 
rigorous  than  that  of-the  old  regime. 

Eugenie  was  a  woman  of  thirty,  andas  yet  had  known  none 
of  the  happiness  of  life.  All  through  her  joyless,  monotonous 
childhood  she-^rad-hadr^BuTone  companion,  a  broker^spirited 
mother,  whose  sensitive  nature  had  found  little  but  suffering 
in  a  hard  life.  That  mother  had  joyfully  taken  leave  of 
existence,  pitying  the  daughter  who  must  still  live  on  in  the 
world.  Eugenie  would  never  lose  the  sense  of  her  loss,  but 
little  of  the  bitterness  of  self-reproach  mingled  with  her  memo- 
ries of  her  mother.  She  felt  that  she  had  always  done  a 
daughter's  duty  to  her  mother. 

Love,  her  first  and  only  love,  had  been  a  fresh  source  of 
sufferingjfor  Eugenie.  For  a  few  brief  days  she  had  seen'  her 
lover ;  she  ha3~-gTveri  her  heart  to  him  between  two  stolen 
kisses ;  then  he  had  left  her,  and  had  set  the  lands  and  seas 
of  the  world  between  them.  Her  father  had  cursed  her  for 
this  love  ;  it  had  nearly  cost  her  her  mother's  life  ;  it  had 
brought  her  pain  and  sorrow  and  a  few  faint  hopes.  She  had 
striven  towards  her  happiness  till  her  own  forces  had  failed 
her,  and  another  had  not  come  to  her  aid. 

Our  souls  live  by  giving  and  receiving  ;  we  have  need  of 
another  soul ;  whatever  it  gives  us  we  make  our  own,  and 
give  back  again  in  overflowing  measure.  This  is  as  vitally 
necessary  for  our  inner  life  as  breathing  is  for  our  corporeal 
existence.  Without  that  wonderful  physical  process  we  perish; 
the  heart  suffers  from  lack  of  air,  and  ceases  to  beat.  Eugenie 
was  beginning  to  suffer. 

She  found  no  solace  in  her  wealth ;  it  could  do  nothing  for 
her ;  her  love,  her  religion,  her  faith  in  the  future  made  up 
all  her  life.  Love  was  teaching  her  what  eternity  meant. 
Her  own  heart  and  the  Gospel  each  spoke  to  her  of  a  life  to 
come ;  life  was  everlasting,  and  love  no  less  eternal.  Night 
and  day  she  dwelt  with  these  two  infinite  thoughts,  perhaps 


EL  GENIE    GRANDE  T.  199 

for  her  they  were  but  one.     She  withdrew  more  and  more 
into  herself;  she  loved,  and  believed  that  she  was  loved. 

For  seven  years  her  passion  had  wholly  engrossed  her. 

Her  treasures  were  not  those  millions  left  to  her  by  her 
father,  the  money  that  went  on  accumulating  year  after  year ; 
but  the  two  portraits  which  hung  above  her  bed,  Charles' 
leather  case,  the 'jewels  which  she  had  bought  back  from  her 
father,  and  which  were  now  proudly  set  forth  on  a  layer  of 
cotton  wool  inside  the  drawer  in  the  old  chest,  and  her  aunt's 
thimble  which  Mine.  Grandet  had  used;  everyday  Eugenie 
took  up  a  piece  of  embroidery,  a  sort  of  Penelope's  web,  which 
she  had  only  begun  that  she  might  wear  the  golden  thimble, 
endeared  to  her  by  so  many  memories. 

It  seemed  hardly  probable  that  Mile.  Grandet  would  marry 
while  she  still  wore  mourning.  Her  sincere  piety  was  well 
known.  So  the  Cruchot  family,  counseled  by  the  astute  old 
Abbe,  was  fain  to  be  content  with  surrounding  the  heiress 
with  the  most  affectionate  attentions.  Her  dining-room  was 
filled  every  evening  with  the  warmest  and  most  devoted 
Cruchotins,  who  endeavored  to  surpass  each  other  in  singing 
the  praises  of  the  mistress  of  the  house  in  every  key.  She 
had  her  physician-in-ordinary,  her  grand  almoner,  her  cham- 
berlain, her  mistress  of  the  robes,  her  prime  minister,  and 
last,  but  by  no  means  least,  her  chancellor — a  chancellor 
whose  aim  it  was  to  keep  her  informed  of  everything.  If  the 
heiress  had  expressed  any  wish  for  a  train  bearer,  they  would 
have  found  one  for  her.  She  was  a  queen,  in  fact,  and  never 
was  queen  so  adroitly  flattered.  A  great  soul  never  stoops  to 
flattery ;  it  is  the  resource  of  little  natures,  who  succeed  in 
making  themselves  smaller  still,  that  they  may  the  better  creep 
into  the  hearts  of  those  about  whom  they  circle.  Flattery, 
by  its  very  nature,  implies  an  interested  motive.  So  the 
people  who  filled  Mile.  Grandet's  sitting-room  every  evening 
(they  addressed  her  and  spoke  of  her  among  themselves  as 
Mile,   de  Froidfond  now)   heaped-  their  praises  upon   their 


200  EUGENIE    GRANDE  T. 

» 
hostess  in  a  manner  truly  marvelous.  This  chorus  of  praise 
embarrassed  Eugenie  at  first ;  but  however  gross  the  flattery 
might  be,  she  became  accustomed  to  hear  her  beauty  extolled, 
and  if  some  newcomer  had  considered  her  to  be  plain,  she 
certainly  would  have  winced  more  under  the  criticism  than 
she  might  have  done  eight  years  ago.  She  came  at  last  to 
welcome  their  homage,  which  in  her  secret  heart  she  laid  at 
the  feet  of  her  idol.  So  also,  by  degrees,  she  accepted  the 
position,  and  allowed  herself  to  be  treated  as  a  queen,  and 
saw  her  little  court  full  every  evening. 

M.  le  President  de  Bonfons  was  the  hero  of  the  circle;  they 
lauded  his  talents,  his  personal  appearance,  his  learning,  his 
amiability;  he  was  an  inexhaustible  subject  of  admiring  com- 
ment. Such  an  one  would  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
seven  years  the  magistrate  had  largely  increased  his  fortune ; 
Bonfons  had  at  least  ten  thousand  francs  a  year;  and  his 
property,  like  the  lands  of  all  the  Cruchots  in  fact,  lay  within 
the  compass  of  the  heiress'  vast  estates. 

"Do  you  know,  mademoiselle,"  another  courtier  would 
remark,  "that  the  Cruchots  have  forty  thousand  livres  a  year 
among  them  !  " 

"And  they  are  putting  money  by,"  said  Mile,  de  Gribeau- 
court,  an  old  and  trusty  Cruchotine.  "Quite  lately  a  gentle- 
man came  from  Paris  on  purpose  to  offer  M.  Cruchot  two 
hundred  thousand  francs  for  his  professional  connection.  If 
he  could  gain  an  appointment  as  justice  of  the  peace,  he 
ought  to  take  the  offer." 

"  He  means  to  succeed  M.  de  Bonfons  as  President,  and  is 
taking  steps  to  that  end,"  said  Mme.  d'Orsonval,  "  for  M.  le 
President  will  be  a  councilor,  and  then  a  president  of  a 
court ;  he  is  so  gifted  that  he  is  sure  to  succeed." 

"Yes,"  said  another,  "he  is  a  very  remarkable  man.  Do 
you  not  think  so,  mademoiselle?  " 

"  M.  le  President  "  had  striven  to  act  up  to  the  part  he 
wanted  to  play.     He  was  forty  years  old,  his  countenance  was 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  201 

dark  and  ill-favored,  lie  had,  moreover,  the  wizened  look 
which  is  frequently  seen  in  men  of  his  profession  ;  but  he 
affected  the  airs  of  youth,  sported  a  malacca  cane,  refrained 
from  taking  snuff  in  Mile.  Grandet's  house,  and  went  thither 
arrayed  in  a  white  cravat  and  a  shirt  with  huge  frills,  which 
gave  him  a  quaint  family  resemblance  to  a  turkey-gobbler. 
He  called  the  fair  heiress  "  our  dear  Eugenie,"  and  spoke  as 
if  he  were  an  intimate  friend  of  the  family.  In  fact,  but  for 
the  number  of  those  assembled,  and  the  substitution  of  whist 
for  loto,  and  the  absence  of  M.  and  Mme.  Grandet,  the 
scene  was  scarcely  changed  ;  it  might  almost  have  been  that 
first  evening  on  which  this  story  began. 

The  pack  was  still  in  pursuit  of  Eugenie's  millions  ;  it  was 
a  more  numerous  pack  now  ;  they  gave  tongue  together,  and 
hunted  down  their  prey  more  systematically. 

If  Charles  had  come  back  from  the  far-off  Indies,  he  would 
have  found  the  same  motives  at  work  and  almost  the  same 
people.  Mme.  des  Grassins,  for  whom  Eugenie  had  nothing 
but  kindness  and  pity,  still  remained  to  vex  the  Cruchots. 
Eugenie's  face  still  shone  out  against  the  dark  background, 
and  Charles  (though  invisible)  reigned  there  supreme  as  in 
other  days. 

Yet  some  advance  had  been  made.  '  Eugenie's  birthday 
bouquet  was  never  forgotten  by  the  magistrate.  Indeed,  it 
had  become  an  institution  ;  every  evening  he  brought  the 
heiress  a  huge  and  wonderful  bouquet.  Mme.  Cornoiller 
ostentatiously  placed  these  offerings  in  a  vase,  and  promptly 
flung  them  into  a  corner  of  the  yard  as  soon  as  the  visitors 
had  departed. 

In  the  early  spring  Mme.  des  Grassins  made  a  move,  and 
sought  to  trouble  the  felicity  of  the  Cruchotins  by  talking  to 
Eugenie  of  the  Marquis  de  Froidfond,  whose  ruined  fortunes 
might  be  retrieved  if  the  heiress  would  return  bis  estate  to  him 
by  a  marriage  contract.  Mme.  des  Grassins  lauded  the  Mar- 
quis and   his  title  to  the  skies;  and,  taking  Eugenie's  quiet 


202  EUG&NIE    GRANDET. 

smile  for  consent,  she  went  about  saying  that  M.  le  President 
Cruchot's  marriage  was  not  such  a  settled  thing  as  some  people 
imagined. 

"  M.  de  Froidfond  may  be  fifty  years  old,"  she  said,  "  but 
he  looks  no  older  than  M.  Cruchot ;  he  is  a  widower,  and  has 
a  family,  it  is  true  ;  but  he  is  a  marquis,  he  will  be  a  peer  of 
France  one  of  these  days,  it  is  not  such  a  bad  match  as  times 
go.  I  know  of  my  own  certain  knowledge  that  when  old 
Grandet  added  his  own  property  to  the  Froidfond  estate  he 
meant  to  graft  his  family  into  the  Froicjfonds.  He  often  told 
me  as  much.  Oh  !  he  was  a  shrewd  old  man,  this  old  man 
Grandet." 

"Ah!  Nanon,"  Eugenie  said  one  evening,  as  she  went  to 
bed,  "  why  has  he  not  once  written  to  me  in  seven 
years  ! " 

While  these  events  were  taking  place  in  Saumur,  Charles 
was  making  his  fortune  in  the  East.  His  first  venture  was 
very  successful.  He  had  promptly  realized  the  sum  of  six 
thousand  dollars.  Crossing  the  line  had  cured  him  of  many 
early  prejudices ;  he  soon  saw  very  clearly  that  the  best  and 
quickest  way  of  making  money  was  the  same  in  the  tropics  as 
in  Europe — by  buying  and  selling  men.  He  made  a  descent 
on  the  African  coasts  and  bargained  for  negroes  and  other 
goods  in  demand  in  various  markets.  He  threw  himself  heart 
and  soul  into  his  business,  and  thought  of  nothing  else.  He 
set  one  clear  aim  before  him,  to  reappear  in  Paris,  and  to 
dazzle  the  world  there  with  his  wealth,  to  attain  a  position 
even  higher  than  the  one  from  which  he  had  fallen. 

By  dint  of  rubbing  shoulders  with  many  men,  traveling  in 
many  lands,  coming  in  contact  with  various  customs  and 
religions,  his  code  had  been  relaxed,  and  he  had  grown  scep- 
tical. His  notions  of  right  and  wrong  became  less  rigid  when 
he  found  that  what  was  looked  upon  as  a  crime  in  one  country 
was  held  up  to  admiration  in  another.     He  saw  that  every 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  203 

one  was  working  for  himself,  that  disinterestedness  was  rarely 
to  be  met  with,  and  grew  selfish  and  suspicious  ;  the  hereditary 
failings  of  the  Grandets  came  out  in  him — the  hardness,  the 
shiftiness,  and  the  greed  of  gain.  He  sold  Chinese  coolies, 
negro  slaves,  swallow-nests,  children,  artists,  and  anything  and 
everything  that  brought  in  money.  He  became  a  money- 
lender on  a  large  scale.  Long  practice  in  cheating  the  custom 
authorities  had  made  him  unscrupulous  in  other  ways.  He 
would  make  the  voyage  to  St.  Thomas,  buy  booty  of  the 
pirates  there  for  a  low  price,  and  sell  the  merchandise  in  the 
dearest  market. 

During  his  first  voyage  Eugenie's  pure  and  noble  face  had 
been  with  him,  like  the  image  of  the  Virgin  which  Spanish 
sailors  set  on  the  prows  of  their  vessels ;  he  had  attributed  his 
first  success  to  a  kind  of  magical  efficacy  possessed  by  her 
prayers  and  vows;  but  as  time  went  on,  the  women  of  other 
countries,  negresses,  mulattoes,  white  skins,  and  yellow  skins, 
orgies  and  adventures  in  many  lands,  completely  effaced  all 
recollection  of  his  cousin,  of  Saumur,  of  the  old  house,  of 
the  bench,  and  of  the  kiss  that  he  had  snatched  in  the  passage. 
He  remembered  nothing  but  the  little  garden  shut  in  by  its 
crumbling  walls  where  he  had  learned  the  fate  that  lay  in  store 
for  him  ;  but  he  rejected  all  connection  with  the  family.  His 
uncle  was  an  old  fox  who  had  filched  his  jewels.  Eugenie 
had  no  place  in  his  heart,  he  never  gave  her  a  thought ;  but 
she  occupied  a  page  in  his  ledger  as  a  creditor  for  six  thou- 
sand francs. 

Such  conduct  and  such  ideas  explained  Charles  Grandet's 
silence.  In  the  East  Indies,  at  St.  Thomas,  on  the  coast  of 
Africa,  at  Lisbon,  in  the  United  States,  Charles  Grandet  the 
adventurer  was  known  as  Carl  Sepherd,  a  pseudonym  which 
he  assumed  so  as  not  to  compromise  his  real  name.  Carl 
Sepherd  could  be  indefatigable,  brazen,  and  greedy  of  gain; 
could  conduct  himself,  in  short,  like  a  man  who  resolves  to 
make  a  fortune  quibuscumque  viis,  and  makes  haste  to  have 


204  EUGENIE   GRANDET. 

done  with  villainy  as  soon  as  possible,  in  order  to  live  re- 
spected for  the  rest  of  his  days. 

With  such  methods  his  career  of  prosperity  was  rapid  and 
brilliant,  and  in  1827  he  returned  to  Bordeaux  on  board  the 
Marie  Caroline,  a  fine  brig  belonging  to  a  Royalist  firm.  He 
had  nineteen  hundred  thousand  francs  with  him  in  gold  dust, 
carefully  secreted  in  three  strong  casks ;  he  hoped  to  sell  it  to 
the  Paris  mint,  and  to  make  eight  percent,  on  the  transaction. 
There  was  also  on  board  the  brig  a  gentleman-in-ordinary  to 
his  majesty  Charles  X.,  a  M.  d'Aubrion,  a  worthy  old  man 
who  had  been  rash  enough  to  marry  a  woman  of  fashion  whose 
money  came  from  estates  in  the  West  India  Islands.  Mme. 
d'Aubrion's  reckless  extravagance  had  obliged  him  to  go  out 
to  the  Indies  to  sell  her  property.  M.  and  Mme.  d'Aubrion, 
of  the  house  of  d'Aubrion  de  Buch,  which  had  lost  its  captal 
or  chieftain  just  before  the  Revolution,  were  now  in  straitened 
circumstances.  They  had  a  bare  twenty  thousand  francs  of 
income  and  a  daughter,  a  very  plain  girl,  whom  her  mother 
made  up  her  mind  to  marry  without  a  dowry;  for  life  in 
Paris  is  expensive,  and,  as  has  been  seen,  their  means  were 
reduced.  It  was  an  enterprise  the  success  of  which  might 
have  seemed  somewhat  problematical  to  a  man  of  the  world, 
in  spite  of  the  cleverness  with  which  a  woman  of  fashion  is 
generally  credited.  Perhaps  even  Mme.  d'Aubrion  herself, 
when  she  looked  at  her  daughter,  was  almost  ready  to  despair 
of  getting  rid  of  her  to  any  one,  even  to  the  most  besotted 
worshiper  of  rank  and  titles. 

Mile.  d'Aubrion  was  a  tall,  spare  demoiselle,  somewhat  like 
her  namesake  the  insect ;  she  had  a  disdainful  mouth,  over- 
shadowed by  a  long  nose,  thick  at  the  tip,  sallow  in  its  normal 
condition,  but  very  red  after  a  meal,  an  organic  change  which 
was  all  the  more  unpleasant  by  reason  of  contrast  with  a 
pallid,  insipid  countenance.  From  some  points  of  view  she 
was  all  that  a  worldly  mother,  who  was  thirty-eight  years  of 
age,  and  had  still  some  pretensions  to  beauty,  could  desire. 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  205 

But  by  way  of  compensating  advantages,  the  Marquise 
d'Aubrion's  distinguished  air  had  been  inherited  by  her 
daughter,  and  that  young  lady  had  been  submitted  to  a 
Spartan  regimen,  which  for  the  time  being  subdued  the  offend- 
ing hue  in  her,  feature  to  a  reasonable  flesh-tint.  Her  mother 
had  taught  her  how  to  dress  herself.  Under  the  same  in- 
structor she  had  acquired  a  charming  manner,  and  had  learned 
to  assume  that  pensive  expression  which  interests  a  man  and 
leads  him  to  imagine  that  here,  surely,  is  the  angel  for  whom 
he  has  hitherto  sought  in  vain.  She  was  carefully  drilled  in  a 
certain  manoeuvre  with  her  foot — to  let  it  peep  forth  from 
beneath  her  petticoat,  and  so  call  attention  to  its  small  size — 
whenever  her  nose  became  unseasonably  red  ;  indeed,  the 
mother  had  made  the  very  best  of  her  daughter.  By  means  of 
large  sleeves,  stiff  skirts,  puffs,  padding,  and  high-pressure 
corsets  she  had  produced  a  highly  curious  and  interesting 
result,  a  specimen  of  femininity  which  ought  to  have  been 
put  into  a  museum  for  the  edification  of  mothers  generally. 

Charles  became  very  intimate  with  Mme.  d'Aubrion  ;  the 
lady  had  her  own  reasons  for  encouraging  him.  People  said 
that  during  the  time  on  board  she  left  no  stone  unturned  to 
secure  such  a  prize  for  a  son-in-law.  It  is  at  any  rate  certain 
that  when  they  landed  at  Bordeaux  Charles  stayed  in  the  same 
hotel  with  M.,  Mme.,  and  Mile.  d'Aubrion,  and  they  all 
traveled  together  to  Paris.  The  hotel  d'Aubrion  was  ham- 
pered with  mortgages,  and  Charles  was  intended  to  come  to 
the  rescue.  The  mother  had  gone  so  far  as  to  say  that  it 
would  give  her  great  pleasure  to  establish  a  son-in-law  on  the 
ground  floor.  She  did  not  share  M.  d'Aubrion's  aristocratic 
prejudices,  and  prornised  Charles  Grandet  to  obtain  letters 
patent  from  that  easy-tempered  monarch,  Charles  X.,  which 
should  authorize  him,  Grandet,  to  bear  the  name  and  assume 
the  arms  of  the  d'Aubrions,  and  (by  purchasing  the  entail)  to 
succeed  to  the  property  of  Aubrion,  which  was  worth  about 
thirty-six  thousand  livres  a  year,  to  say  nothing  of  the  titles 


206  EUG&NJE    GRANDET. 

of  Captal  de  Buch  and  Marquis  d'Aubrion.  They  could  be 
very  useful  to  each  other,  in  short ;  and  what  with  this  arrange- 
ment of  a  joint  establishment,  and  one  or  two  posts  about  the 
Court,  the  hotel  d'Aubrion  might  count  upon  an  income  of  a 
hundred  thousand  francs  and  more. 

"And  when  a  man  has  a  hundred  thousand  francs  a  year, 
a  name,  a  family,  and  a  position  at  Court — for  I  shall  procure 
an  appointment  for  you  as  gentleman-of-the-bedchamber — 
the  rest  is  easy.  You  can  be  anything  you  choose  "  (so  she 
instructed  Charles),  "  Master  of  Requests. in  the  Council  of 
State,  Prefect,  Secretary  to  an  Embassy,  the  Ambassador  him- 
self if  you  like.  Charles  X.  is  much  attached  to  d'Aubrion ; 
they  have  known  each  other  from  childhood." 

She  fairly  turned  his  head  with  these  ambitious  schemes, 
and  during  the  voyage  Charles  began  to  cherish  the  hopes  and 
ideas  which  had  been  so  cleverly  insinuated  in  the  form  of 
tender  confidences.  He  never  doubted  but  that  his  uncle  had 
paid  his  father's  creditors;  he  had  been  suddenly  launched 
into  the  society  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  at  that  time 
the  goal  of  social  ambition  ;  and  beneath  the  shadow  of  Mile. 
Mathilde's  purple  nose,  he  was  shortly  to  appear  as  the  Comte 
d'Aubrion,  very  much  as  the  Dreux  shone  forth  transformed 
into  Brezes.  He  was  dazzled  by  the  apparent  prosperity  of  the 
restored  dynasty,  which  had  seemed  to  be  tottering  to  its  fall 
when  he  left  France  ;  his  head  was  full  of  wild  ambitious 
dreams,  which  began  on  the  voyage,  and  did  not  leave  him  in 
Paris.  He  resolved  to  strain  every  nerve  to  reach  those  pinna- 
cles of  glory  which  his  egotistical  would-be  mother-in-law 
had  pointed  out  to  him.  His  cousin  was  only  a  dim  speck  in 
the  remote  past  ;  she  had  no  place  in  this  brilliant  future,  no 
part  in  his  dreams,  but  he  went  to  see  Annette.  That  experi- 
enced woman  of  the  world  gave  counsel  to  her  old  friend ;  he 
must  by  no  means  let  slip  such  an  opportunity  for  an  alliance  ; 
she  promised  to  aid  him  in  all  his  schemes  of  advancement. 
In  her  heart  she  was  delighted  to  see  Charles  thus  secured  to 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  207 

such  a  plain  and  uninteresting  girl.  He  had  grown  very 
attractive  during  his  stay  in  the  Indies  ;  his  complexion  had 
grown  darker,  he  had  gained  in  manliness  and  self-possession  ; 
he  spoke  in  the  firm,  decided  tones  of  a  man  who  is  used  to 
command  and  to, success.  Ever  since  Charles  Grandet  had 
discovered  that  there  was  a  definite  part  for  him  to- play  in 
Paris,  he  was  himself  at  once. 

Des  Grassins,  hearing  of  his  return,  his  approaching  mar- 
riage, and  his  large  fortune,  came  to  see  him,  and  spoke  of  the 
three  hundred  thousand  francs  still  owing  to  his  father's  cred- 
itors. He  found  Charles  closeted  with  a  goldsmith,  from 
whom  he  had  ordered  jewels  for  Mile.  d'Aubrion's  present, 
and  who  was  submitting  designs.  Charles  himself  had  brought 
magnificent  diamonds  from  the  Indies;  but  the  cost  of  setting 
them,  together  with  the  silver  plate  and  jewelry  of  the  new 
establishment,  amounted  to  more  than  two  hundred  thousand 
francs.  He  did  not  recognize  des  Grassins  at  first,  and  treated 
him  with  the  cool  insolence  of  a  young  man  of  fashion  who 
is  conscious  that  he  has  killed  four  men  in  as  many  duels  in  the 
Indies.  As  M.  des  Grassins  had  already  called  three  or  four 
times,  Charles  vouchsafed  to  hear  him,  but  it  was  with  bare 
politeness,  and  he  did  not  pay  the  slightest  attention  to  what 
the  banker  Said. 

"  My  father's  debts  are  not  mine,"  he  said  coolly.  "  I  am 
obliged  to  you,  sir,  for  the  trouble  you  have  been  good  enough 
to  take,  but  I  am  none  the  better  for  it  that  I  can  see.  I  have 
not  scraped  together  a  couple  of  millions,  earned  with  the 
sweat  of  my  brow,  to  fling  it  to  my  father's  creditors  at  this 
late  day." 

"  But  suppose  that  your  father  were  to  be  declared  bankrupt 
in  a  few  days'  time  ?  " 

"In  a  few  days'  time  I  shall  be  the  Comte  d'Aubrion, 
sir;  so  you  can  see  that  it  is  a  matter  of  entire  indiffer- 
ence to  me.  Besides,  you  know  even  better  than  I  do  that 
when    a    man    has    a  hundred    thousand    livres    a  year,   his 


208  EUGENIE    GRANDE T. 

father  never  has  been    a  bankrupt,"   and  he  politely  edged 

the  deputy  des  Grassins  to  the  door. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  month  of  August,  in  that  same 
year,  Eugenie  was  sitting  on  the  little  bench  in  the  garden 
where  her  cousin  ^Had  lTwoTn*~ln:ernal  love,  and  where  she 
often  took  breakfast  in  summer  mornings.  The  poor  girl 
was  almost  happy  for  a  few  brief  moments;  she  went  over 
all  the  great  and  little  events  of  her  love  before  those  catas- 
trophes that  followed.  The  morning  was  fresh  and  bright, 
and  the  garden  was  full  of  sunlight  ;  her  eyes  wandered 
over  the  wall  with  its  moss  and  flowers ;  it  was  full  of 
cracks  now,  and  all  but  in  ruins,  but  no  one  was  allowed  to 
touch  it,  though  Cornoiller  was  always  prophesying  to  his 
wife  that  the  whole  thing  would  come  down  and  crush  some- 
body or  other  one  of  these  days.  The  postman  knocked 
at  the  door,  and  gave  a  letter  into  the  hands  of  Mme.  Cor- 
noiller, who  hurried  into  the  garden,  crying,  tl  Mademoiselle  ! 
A  letter!  Is  it  the  letter?"  she  added,  as  she  handed  it  to 
her  mistress. 

The  words  rang  through  Eugenie's  heart  as  the  spoken 
sounds  rang  from  the  ramparts  and  the  old  garden  wall. 

"  Paris  ! It  is  his  writing  !     Then  he  has  come  back." 

Eugenie's  face  grew  white  ;  for  several  seconds  she  kept  the 
seal  unbroken,  for  her  heart  beat  so  fast  that  she  could  neither 
move  nor  see.  Big  Nanon  stood  and  waited  with  both  hands 
on  her  hips  ;  joy  seemed  to  puff  like  smoke  from  every  wrin- 
kle in  her  brown  face. 

"  Do  read  it,  mademoiselle  !  " 

"  Oh  !  why  does  he  come  back  by  way  of  Paris,  Nanon, 
when  he  went  by  way  of  Saumur?" 

"  Read  it ;  the  letter  will  tell  you  why." 

Eugenie's  fingers  trembled  as  she  opened  the  envelope;  a 
check  on  the  firm  of  "  Mme.  des  Grassins  et  Corret,  Saumur, ,r 
fell  out  of  it  and  fluttered  down.     Nanon  picked  it  up. 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  2(H) 

"My  dear  Cousin " 

("I  am  not  'Eugenie'  now,"  she  thought,  and  her  heart 
stood  still.)     "You " 

"  He  used  to  say  thou  /"  She  folded  her  arms  and  dreaded 
to  read  any  further  ;  great  tears  gathered  in  her  eyes. 

"  What  is  it  ?     Is  he  dead  ?  "  asked  Nanon. 

"If  he  were,  he  could  not  write,"  said  Eugenie,  and  she 
read  the  letter  through.     It  ran  as  follows  : 

"  My  dear  Cousin  : — You  will,  I  am  sure,  hear  with  pleasure 
of  the  success  of  my  enterprise.  You  brought  me  luck ;  I 
have  come  back  to  France  a  wealthy  man,  as  my  uncle  advised. 
I  have  just  heard  of  his  death,  together  with  that  of  my  aunt, 
from  M.  des  Grassins.  Our  parents  must  die  in  the  course  of 
nature,  and  we  ourselves  must  follow  them.  I  hope  that  by 
this  time  you  are  consoled  for  your  loss  ;  time  cures  all  trouble, 
as  I  know  by  experience.  Yes,  my  dear  cousin,  the  day  of 
illusions  has  gone  by  for  me.  I  am  sorry,  but  it  cannot  be 
helped.  I  have  knocked  about  the  world  so  much,  and  seen 
so  much,  that  I  have  been  led  to  reflect  on  life.  I  was  a  child 
when  I  went  away;  I  have  come  back  a  man,  and  I  have 
many  things  to  think  about  now  which  I  did  not  even  dream 
of  then.  You  are  free,  my  cousin,  and  I  too  am  free  still ; 
there  is  apparently  nothing  to  hinder  the  realization  of  our 
youthful  hopes,  but  I  am  too  straightforward  to  hide  my  pres- 
ent situation  from  you.  I  have  not  for  a  moment  forgotten 
that  I  am  bound  to  you ;  through  all  my  wanderings  I  have 
always  remembered  the  little  wooden  bench " 

Eugenie  started  up  as  if  she  were  sitting  on  burning  coals, 
and  sat  down  on.  one  of  the  broken  stone  steps  in  the 
yard. 

— "the  little  wooden  bench  where  we  vowed  to  love  each 
other  for  ever ;  the  passage,  the  gray  parlor,  my  attic  room, 
14 


210  EUGENIE   GRAND ET. 

the  night  when  in  your  thoughtfulness  and  tact  you  made  my 
future  easier  to  me.  Yes,  these  memories  have  been  my  sup- 
port ;  I  have  said  in  my  heart  that  you  were  always  thinking 
of  me  when  I  thought  of  you  at  the  hour  we  had  agreed  upon. 
Did  you  not  look  out  into  the  darkness  at  nine  o'clock?  Yes, 
I  am  sure  you  did.  I  would  not  prove  false  to  so  sacred  a  friend- 
ship ;  I  cannot  deal  insincerely  with  you. 

"A  marriage  has  been  proposed  to  me,  which  is  in  every 
way  satisfactory  to  my  mind.  Love  in  a  marriage  is  romantic 
nonsense.  Experience  has  clearly  shown  me  that  in  marrying 
we  must  obey  social  laws  and  conform  to  conventional  ideas. 
There  is  some  difference  of  age  between  you  and  me,  which 
would  perhaps  be  more  likely  to  affect  your  future  than  mine, 
and  there  are  other  differences  of  which  I  need  not  speak ; 
your  bringing  up,  your  ways  of  life,  and  your  tastes  have  not 
fitted  you  for  Parisian  life,  nor  would  they  harmonize  with 
the  future  which  I  have  marked  out  for  myself.  For  instance, 
it  is  a  part  of  my  plan  to  maintain  a  great  household,  and  to 
see  a  good  deal  of  society ;  and  you,  I  am  sure,  from  my 
recollections  of  you,  would  prefer  a  quiet,  domestic  life  and 
home-keeping  ways.  No,  I  will  be  open  with  you;  I  will 
abide  by  your  decision ;  but  I  must  first,  however,  lay  all 
the  facts  of  the  case  before  you,  that  you  may  the  better 
judge. 

"I  possess  at  the  time  of  writing  an  income  of  eighty  thou- 
sand livres.  With  this  fortune  I  am  able  to  marry  into  the 
d'Aubrion  family ;  I  should  take  their  name  on  my  marriage 
with  their  only  daughter,  a  girl  of  nineteen,  and  secure  at  the- 
same  time  a  very  brilliant  position  in  society,  and  the  post  of 
gentleman-of-the-bedchamber.  I  will  assure  you  at  once,  my 
dear  cousin,  that  I  have  not  the  slightest  affection  for  Mile. 
d'Aubrion,  but  by  this  marriage  I  shall  secure  for  my  children 
a  social  rank  which  will  be  of  inestimable  value  in  the  future. 
Monarchical  principles  are  daily  gaining  ground.  A  few  years 
hence  my  son,  the  Marquis  d'Aubrion,  would  have  an  entailed 


EUG&NIE    GRANDE  T.  211 

estate  and  a  yearly  rental  of  forty  thousand  livres ;  with  such 
advantages  there  would  be  no  position  to  which  he  might  not 
aspire.     We  ought  to  live  for  our  children. 

"You  see,  my  cousin,  how  candidly  I  am  laying  the  state 
of  my  heart,  my  hopes,  and  my  fortunes  before  you.  Perhaps 
after  seven  years  of  separation  you  may  yourself  have  forgotten 
our  childish  love  affair,  but  I  have  never  forgotten  your  good- 
ness or  my  promise.  A  less  conscientious,  a  less  upright  man, 
with  a  heart  less  youthful  than  mine,  might  scarcely  feel  him- 
self bound  by  it ;  but  for  me  a  promise,  however  lightly  given, 
is  sacred.  When  I  tell  you  plainly  that  my  marriage  is  solely 
a  marriage  of  suitability,  and  that  I  have  not  forgotten  the 
love  of  our  youthful  days,  am  I  not  putting  myself  entirely 
into  your  hands,  and  making  you  the  arbitress  of  my  fate? 
Is  it  not  implied  that  if  I  must  renounce  my  social  ambitions, 
I  shall  willingly  content  myself  with  the  simple  and  pure  hap- 
piness which  is  always  called  up  by  the  thought  of  you " 

"  Tra-la-la-tan-ta-ti !  "  sang  Charles  Grandet.to  the  air  of 
Non pih  andrai,  as  he  signed  himself, 

"  Your  devoted  cousin, 

"  Charles." 

"  By  Jove  !  that  is  acting  handsomely,"  he  said  to  himself. 
He  looked  about  him  for  the  cheque,  slipped  it  in,  and  added 
a  postscript. 

"  P.S. — I  enclose  a  cheque  on  Mme.  des  Grassins  for  eight 
thousand  francs,  payable  in  gold  to  your  order,  comprising 
the  capital  and  interest  of  the  sum  you  were  so  kind  to  ad- 
vance me.  I  anvexpecting  a  case  from  Bordeaux  which  con- 
tains a  few  things  which  you  must  allow  me  to  send  you  as  a 
token  of  my  unceasing  gratitude.  You  can  send  my  dressing- 
case  by  the  diligence  to  the  Hotel  d'Aubrion,  Rue  Hillerin- 
Bertin." 


212  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

"  By  the  diligence  !  "  cried  Eugenie,  "  when  I  would  have 
given  my  life  for  it  a  thousand  times  !  " 

Terrible  and  complete  shipwreck  of  hope ;  the  vessel  had 
gone  down,  there  was  not  a  spar,  not  a  plank  in  the  vast  ocean. 
There  are  women  who  when  their  lover  forsakes  them  will 
drag  him  from  a  rival's  arms  and  murder  her,  and  fly  for 
refuge  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  to  the  scaffold,  or  the  grave. 
There  is  a  certain  grandeur  in  this  no  doubt ;  there  is  some- 
thing so  sublime  in  the  passion  of  indignation  which  prompts 
the  crirne^  that  man's  justice  is  awed  into  silence  ;  but  there 
are  other  women  who  suffer  and  bow  their  heads.  They  go 
on  their  way,  submissive  and  broken-hearted,  weeping  and 
forgiving,  praying  till  their  last  sigh  for  him  whom  they  never 
forget.  And  this  no  less  is  love,  love  such  as  the  angels 
know,  love  that  bears  itself  proudly  in  anguish,  that  lives 
by  the  secret  pain  of  which  it  dies  at  last.  This  was  to  be 
Eugenie's  love  now  that  she  had  read  that  horrible  letter. 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  the  sky  and  thought  of  her  mother's 
prophetic  words,  uttered  in  the  moment  of  clear  vision  that  is 
sometimes  given  to  dying  eyes ;  and  as  she  thought  of  her 
mother's  life  and  death,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  looking 
out  over  her  own  future.  There  was  nothing  left  to  her  now 
but  to  live  prayerfully  till  the  day  of  her  deliverance  should 
come  and  the  soul  spread  its  wings  for  heaven. 

"My  mother  was  right,"  she  said,  weeping.  "  Suffer — and 
die." 

She  went  slowly  from  the  garden  into  the  house,  avoiding 
the  passage;  but  when  she  came  into  the  old  gray  parlor,  it 
was  full  of  memories  of  her  cousin.  On  the  chimney-piece 
there  stood  a  certain  china  saucer,  which  she  used  every 
morning,  and  the  old  Sevres  sugar  basin. 

It  was  to  be  a  memorable  and  eventful  day  for  Eugenie. 
Nanon  announced  the  curd  of  the  parish  church.  He  was 
related  to  the  Cruchots,  and  therefore  in  the  interests  of  the 
President  de  Bonfons.     For  some  days  past  the  Abb6  had 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  213 

urged  the  cure  to  speak  seriously  to  Mile.  Grandet  about  the 
duty  of  marriage  from  a  religious  point  of  view  for  a  woman 
in  her  position.  Eugenie,  seeing  her  pastor,  fancied  that  he 
had  come  for  the  thousand  francs  which  she  gave  him  every 
month  for  the  poor  of  his  parish,  and  sent  Nanon  for  the 
money;  but  the  curate  began  with  a  smile,  '-To-day,  mademoi- 
selle, I  have  come  to  take  counsel  with  you  about  a  poor  girl 
in  whom  all  Saumur  takes  an  interest,  and  who,  through  lack 
of  charity  to  herself,  is  not  living  as  a  Christian  should." 

"  Mon  Dieu  /  M.  le  Cure,  just  now  I  can  think  of  nobody  but 
myself.  I  am  very  miserable,  my  only  refuge  is  in  the  Church  j 
her  heart  is  large  enough  to  hold  all  human  sorrows,  her  love 
so  inexhaustible  that  we  need  never  fear  to  drain  it  dry." 

"Well,  mademoiselle,  when  we  speak  of  this  girl,  we  shall 
speak  of  you.  Listen  !  If  you  would  fain  work  out  your 
salvation,  there  are  but  two  ways  open  to  you  :  you  must  either 
leave  the  world  or  live  in  the  world  and  submit  to  its  laws 
— you  must  choose  between  the  earthly  and  the  heavenly 
vocation." 

"  Ah  !  your  voice  speaks  to  me  when  I  need  to  hear  a  voice. 
Yes,  God  has  sent  you  to  me.  I  will  bid  the  world  farewell, 
and  live  for  God  alone,  in  silence  and  seclusion." 

"But,  my  daughter,  you  should  think  long  and  prayerfully 
before  taking  so  strong  a  measure.  Marriage  is  life  ;  the  veil 
and  the  convent  is  death." 

"Yes,  death.  Ah!  if  death  would  only  come  quickly, 
M.  le  CurS,"  she  said,  with  dreadful  eagerness. 

"Death  ?  But  you  have  great  obligations  to  fulfill  towards 
society,  mademoiselle.  There  is  your  family  of  poor,  to  whom 
you  give  clothes  and  firing  in  winter  and  work  in  summer. 
Your  great  fortune  is  a  loan,  of  which  you  must  give  account 
one  day.  You  have  always  looked  on  it  as  a  sacred  trust.  It 
would  be  selfish  to  bury  yourself  in  a  convent,  and  you  ought 
not  to  live  alone  in  the  world.  In  the  first  place,  how  can 
you  endure   the  burden  of  your  vast  fortune  alone?     You 


214  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

might  lose  it.  You  will  be  involved  in  endless  litigation ; 
you  will  find  yourself  in  difficulties  from  which  you  will  not 
be  able  to  extricate  yourself.  Take  your  pastor's  word,  a 
husband  is  useful ;  you  ought  not  to  lose  what  God  has  given 
into  your  charge.  I  speak  to  you  as  to  a  cherished  lamb  of 
my  flock.  You  love  God  too  sincerely  to  find  hindrances  to 
your  salvation  in  the  world ;  you  are  one  of  its  fairest  orna- 
ments, and  should  remain  in  it  as  an  example  of  holiness." 

At  this  point  Mme.  des  Grassins  was  announced.  The 
banker's  wife  was  smarting  under  a  grievous  disappointment, 
and  thirsted  for  revenge. 

"Mademoiselle "    she   began.      "Oh!    M.   le  Cure  is 

here 1    will   say  no    more  then.     I  came  to  speak  about 

some  matters  of  business,  but  I  see  you  are  deep  in  something 
else." 

"  Madame,"  said  the  cure,  "  I  leave  the  field  to  you." 

"  Oh  !  M.  le  Cure,  pray  come  back  again  ;  I  stand  in  great 
need  of  your  help  just  now." 

"  Yes,  indeed,  my  poor  child  !  "  said  Mme.  des  Grassins. 

u  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Eugenie  and  the  cure  both 
together. 

"  Do  you  suppose  that  I  haven't  heard  that  your  cousin  has 
come  back,  and  is  going  to  marry  Mile.  d'Aubrion  ?  A 
woman  doesn't  go  about  with  her  wits  in  her  pocket." 

Eugenie  was  silent,  there  was  a  red  flush  on  her  face,  but 
she  made  up  her  mind  at  once  that  henceforward  no  one 
should  learn  anything  from  her,  and  looked  as  impenetrable 
as  her  father  used  to  do. 

"Well,  madame,"  she  said,  with  a  tinge  of  bitterness  in 
her  tones,  u  it  seems  that  I,  at  any  rate,  carry  my  wits  in  my 
pocket,  for  I  am  quite  at  a  loss  to  understand  you.  Speak 
out  and  explain  yourself;  you  can  speak  freely  before  M.  le 
Cure,  he  is  my  director,  as  you  know." 

"  Well,  then,  mademoiselle,  see  for  yourself  what  des  Gras- 
sins says.     Here  is  the  letter." 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  215 

Eugenie  read : 

"  My  dear  Wife  : — Charles  Grandet  has  returned  from  the 
Indies,  and  has  been  in  Paris  these  two  months " 

"Two  months!  "  said  Eugenie  to  herself,  and  her  hand 
fell  to  her  side.     After  a  moment  she  went  on  reading : 

"  I  had  to  dance  attendance  on  him,  and  called  twice  be- 
fore the  future  Comte  d'Aubrion  would  condescend  to  see  me. 
All  Paris  is  talking  about  his  marriage,  and  the  banns  are 
published «" 

/'And  he  wrote  to  me  after  that?"  Eugenie  said  to  her- 
self. She  did  not  round  off  the  sentence  as  a  Parisienne 
would  have  done,  with  "Wretch  that  he  is  !  "  but  her  scorn 
was  not  one  whit  the  less  because  it  was  unexpressed. 

— "  but  it  will  be  a  good  while  yet  before  he  marries  ;  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  Marquis  d'Aubrion  will  give  his  daughter  to  the 
son  of  a  bankrupt  wine  merchant.  I  called  and  told  him  of 
all  the  trouble  we  had  been  at,  his  uncle  and  I,  in  the  matter 
of  his  father's  failure,  and  of  our  clever  dodges  that  had  kept 
the  creditors  quiet  so  far.  The  insolent  puppy  had  the  effron- 
tery to  say  to  me — to  me,  who  for  five  years  have  toiled  day 
and  night  in  his  interest  and  to  save  his  credit — that  his 
father's  affairs  were  not  his  /  A  solicitor  would  have  wanted 
thirty  or  forty  thousand  francs  of  him  in  fees  at  the  rate  of 
one  per  cent,  on  the  total  of  the  debt !  But,  patience  ! 
There  is  something  that  he  does  owe,  however,  and  that  thA 
law  shall  make  him  pay,  that  is  to  say,  twelve  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  to  his  father's  creditors,  and  I  shall  declare  hH 
father  bankrupt.  I  mixed  myself  up  in  this  affair  on  the  word 
of  that  old  crocodile  of  a  Grandet,  and  I  have  given  promises 
in  the  name  of  the  family.  M.  le  Comte  d'Aubrion  may  not 
care  for  his  honor,  but  I  care  a  good  deal  for  mine !     So  I 


216  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

shall  just  explain  my  position  to  the  creditors.  Still,  I  have 
too  much  respect  for  Mile.  Eugenie  (with  whom,  in  happier 
days,  we  hoped  to  be  more  closely  connected)  to  take  any 
steps  before  you  have  spoken  to  her " 

There  Eugenie  paused,  and  quietly  returned  the  letter. 

"  I  am  obliged  to  you,"  she  said  to  Mme.  des  Grassins. 
"  We  shall  see " 

"  Your  voice  was  exactly  like  your  father's  just  then,"  ex- 
claimed Mme.  des  Grassins. 

"  Madame,"  put  in  Nan  on,  producing  Charles'  cheque, 
"you  have  eight  thousand  francs  to  pay  us." 

"  True.  Be  so  good  as  to  come  with  me,  Mme.  Cor- 
noiller." 

"  M.  le  Cure,"  said  Eugenie,  with  a  noble  composure  that 
came  of  the  thought  which  prompted  her,  "  would  it  be  a  sin 
to  remain  in  a  state  of  virginity  after  marriage  ?  " 

l(  It  is  a  case  of  conscience  which  I  cannot  solve.  If  you 
care  to  know  what  the  celebrated  Sanchez  says  in  his  great 
work,  De  Matrimonio,  I  could  inform  you  to-morrow." 

The  cure  took  leave.  Mile.  Grandet  went  up  to  her 
father's  room  and  spent  the  day  there  by  herself;  she  would 
not  even  come  down  to  dinner,  though  Nanon  begged  and 
scolded.  She  appeared  in  the  evening  at  the  hour  when  the 
usual  company  began  to  arrive.  The  gray  parlor  in  the 
Grandet's  house  had  never  been  so  well  filled  as  it  was  that 
night.  Every  soul  in  the  town  knew  by  that  time  of  Charles' 
return,  and  of  his  faithlessness  and  ingratitude ;  but  their 
inquisitive  curiosity  was  not  to  be  gratified.  Eugenie  was  a 
little  late,  but  no  one  saw  any  traces  of  the  cruel  agitation 
through  which  she  had  passed  ;  she  could  smile  benignly  in 
reply  to  the  compassionate  looks  and  words  which  some  of 
the  group  thought  fit  to  bestow  on  her;  she  bore  her  pain 
behind  a  mask  of  politeness. 

About  nine  o'clock  the  card-players  drew  away  from  the 


EUGENIE    GRANDET.  217 

tables,  paid  their  losses,  and  criticised  the  game  and  the  vari- 
ous points  that  had  been  made.  Just  as  there  was  a  general 
move  in  the  direction  of  the  door,  an  unexpected  develop- 
ment took  place ;  the  news  of  it  rang  through  Saumur  and 
four  prefectures  round  about  for  days  after. 

"Please  stay,  M.  le  President." 

There  was  not  a  person  in  the  room  who  did  not  thrill  with 
excitement  at  the  words  ;  M.  de  Bonfons,  who  was  about  to 
take  his  cane,  turned  quite  white,  and  sat  down  again. 

"The  President  takes  the  millions,"  said  Mile,  de 
Gribeaucourt. 

"It'  is  quite  clear  that  President  de  Bonfons  is  going  to 
marry  Mile.  Grandet,"  criedMme.  cTOrsonval." 

"The  best  trick  of  the  game  !  "  commented  the  Abbe. 

"A  very  pretty  slam,'\  said  the  notary. 

Every  one  said  his  say  and  cut  his  joke,  every  one  thought 
of  the  heiress  mounted  upon  her  millions  as  if  she  were  on  a 
pedestal.  Here  was  the  catastrophe  of  the  drama,  begun 
nine  years  ago,  taking  place  under  their  eyes.  To  tell  the 
President  in  the  face  of  all  Saumur  to  "  stay  "  was  as  good  as 
announcing  at  once  that  she  meant  to  take  the  magistrate  for 
her  husband.  Social  conventionalities  are  rigidly  observed  in 
little  country  towns,  and  such  an  infraction  as  this  was  looked 
upon  as  a  binding  promise. 

"  M.  le  President,"  Eugenie  began  in  an  unsteady  voice, 
as  soon  as  they  were  alone,  "  I  know  what  you  care  about  in 
me.  Swear  to  leave  me  free  till  the  end  of  my  life,  to  claim 
none  of  the  rights  which  marriage  will  give  you  over  me,  and 
my  hand  is  yours.  Oh  !  "  she  said,  seeing  him  about  to  fall 
on  his  knees,  "  I  have  not  finished  yet.  I  must  tell  you 
frankly  that  there  are  memories  in  my  heart  which  can  never 
be  effaced  ;  that  friendship  is  all  that  I  can  g^ive  myjiusband  ; 
I  wish  neither  to  affront  him  nor  to  be  disloyal  to  mjMjwn 
HBkiL.  Biil  j>uV"bllaH  only  luvu  unhand  and  fortune  at  the 
price  of  ttn  imuiuuse'service  wlTrcrrTwanFyou  to  "Ho  m e . ' ! 


218  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

"Anything,  I  will  do  anything,"  said  the  president. 

"  Here  are  fifteen  hundred  thousand  francs,  M.  le  Presi- 
dent," she  said,  drawing  from  her  bodice  a  certificate  for  a 
hundred  shares  in  the  Bank  of  France ;  "  will  you  set  out  for 
Paris?  You  must  not  even  wait  till  the  morning,  but  go  at 
once,  to-night.  You  must  go  straight  to  M.  des  Grassins,  ask 
him  for  a  list  of  my  uncle's  creditors,  call  them  together,  and 
discharge  all  outstanding  claims  upon  Guillaume  Grandet's 
estate.  Let  the  creditors  have  capital  and  interest  at  five  per 
cent,  from  the  day  the  debts  were  contracted  to  the  present 
time;  and  see  that  in  every  case  a  receipt  in  full  is  given,  and 
that  it  is  made  out  in  proper  form.  You  are  a  magistrate, 
you  are  the  only  person  whom  I  feel  that  I  can  trust  in  such  a 
case.  You  are  a  gentleman  and  a  man  of  honor;  you  have 
given  me  your  word,  and,  protected  by  your  name,  I  will 
make  the  perilous  voyage  of  life.  We  shall  know  how  to 
make  allowances  for  each  other,  for  we  have  been  acquainted 
for  so  long  that  it  is  almost  as  if  we  were  related,  and  I  am 
sure  you  would  not  wish  to  make  me  unhappy." 

The  president  fell  on  his  knees  at  the  feet  of  the  rich  heiress 
in  a  paroxysm  of  joy. 

"I  will  be  your  slave  !  "  he  said. 

"When  all  the  receipts  are  in  your  possession,  sir,"  she 
went  on,  looking  quietly  at  him,  "you  must  take  them,  to- 
gether with  the  bills,  to  my  cousin  Grandet,  and  give  them 
to  him  with  this  letter.  When  you  come  back,  I  will  keep 
my  word." 

The  president  understood  the  state  of  affairs  perfectly  well. 
"She  is  accepting  me  out  of  pique,"  he  thought,  and  he 
hastened  to  do  Mile.  Grandet's  bidding  with  all  possible  speed, 
for  fear  some  chance  might  bring  about  a  reconciliation  be- 
tween the  lovers. 

As  soon  as  M.  de  Bonfons  left  her,  Eugenie  sank  into  her 
chair  and  burst  into  tears.  All  was  over,  and  this  was  the 
end. 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  219 

The  president  traveled  post-haste  to  Paris  and  reached  his 
journey's  end  on  the  following  evening.  The  next  morning 
he  went  to  des  Grassins,  and  arranged  for  a  meeting  of  the 
creditors  in  the  office  of  the  notary  with  whom  the  bills  had 
been  deposited.  Every  man  of  them  appeared,  every  man  of 
them  was  punctual  to  a  moment — one  should  give  even  cred- 
itors their  dues. 

M.  de  Bonfons,  in  Mile.  Grandet's  name,  paid  down  the 
money  in  full,  both  capital  and  interest.  They  were  paid  in- 
terest !  It  was  an  amazing  portent,  a  nine  days'  wonder  in 
the  business  world  of  Paris.  After  the  whole  affair  had  been 
wound  up,  and  when,  by  Eugenie's  desire,  des  Grassins  had 
received  fifty  thousand  francs  for  his  services,  the  president 
betook  himself  to  the  Hotel  d'Aubrion,  and  was  lucky  enough 
to  find  Charles  at  home,  and  in  disgrace  with  his  future  father- 
in-law.  The  old  Marquis  had  just  informed  that  gentleman 
that  until  Guillaume  Grandet's  creditors  were  satisfied,  a  mar- 
riage with  his  daughter  was  not  to  be  thought  of. 

To  Charles,  thus  despondent,  the  president  delivered  the 
following  letter : 

"Dear  Cousin: — M.  le  President  de  Bonfons  has  under- 
taken to  hand  you  a  discharge  of  all  claims  against  my  uncle's 
estate,  and  to  deliver  it  in  person,  together  with  this  letter,  so 
that  I  may  know  that  it  is  safely  in  your  hands.  I  heard 
rumors  of  bankruptcy,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  difficulties 
might  possibly  arise  as  a  consequence  in  the  matter  of  your 
marriage  with  Mile.  d'Aubrion.  Yes,  cousin,  you  are  quite 
right  about  my  tastes  and  manners;  I  have  lived,  as  you  say, 
so  entirely  out  of  the  world  that  I  know  nothing  of  its  ways 
or  its  calculations,  and  my  companionship  could  never  make 
up  to  you  for  the  loss  of  the  pleasures  that  you  look  to  find  in 
society.  I  hope  that  you  will  be  happy  according  to  the  social 
conventions  to  which  you  have  sacrificed  our  early  love.  The 
only  thing  in  my  power  to  give  you  to  complete  your  happi* 


220  EUGENIE   GRANDET. 

ness  is  your  father's  good  name.     Farewell ;  you  will  always 
find  a  faithful  friend  in  your  cousin,  Eugenie." 

In  spite  of  himself  an  exclamation  broke  from  the  man  of 
social  ambitions  when  his  eyes  fell  on  the  discharge  and  re- 
ceipts.    The  president  smiled. 

"We  can  each  announce  our  marriage,"  said  he. 

"Oh!  you  are  to  marry  Eugenie,  are  you?  Well,  I  am 
glad  to  hear  it;  she  is  a  kind-hearted  girl.  Why!"  struck 
with  a  sudden  luminous  idea,  "  she  must  be  rich  ?  " 

"Four  days  ago  she  had  about  nineteen  millions,"  the 
president  said,  with  a  malicious  twinkle  in  his  eyes  ;  "  to-day 
she  has  only  seventeen." 

Charles  was  dumfounded  ;  he  starefl  at  the  president. 

"Seventeen  mil " 

"Seventeen  millions.  Yes,  sir;  when  we  are  married, 
Mile.  Grandet  and  I  shall  muster  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  livres  a  year  between  us." 

"  My  dear  cousin,"  said  Charles,  with  some  return  of  assur- 
ance, "  we  shall  be  able  to  push  each  other's  fortunes." 

"  Certainly,"  said  the  president.  "  There  is  something  else 
here,"  he  added,  "  a  little  case  that  I  was  to  give  only  in  your 
hands,"  and  he  set  down  a  box  containing  the  dressing-case 
upon  the  table. 

The  door  opened,  and  in  came  Mme.  la  Marquise  d'Au- 
brion  ;  the  great  lady  seemed  to  be  unaware  of  Cruchot's 
existence.  "  Look  here  !  dear,"  she  said,  "  never  mind  what 
that  absurd  M.  d'Aubrion  has  been  saying  to  you;  the  Duch- 
esse  de  Chaulieu  has  quite  turned  his  head.  I  repeat  it,  there 
is  nothing  to  prevent  your  marriage " 

"Nothing,  madame,"  answered  Charles.  "The  three 
millions  which  my  father  owed  were  paid  yesterday." 

"  In  money  ?  "  she  asked. 

"In  full,  capital  and  interest;  I  mean  to  rehabilitate  his 
memory." 


EUGENIE   GRANDET.  221 

"What  nonsense!"  cried  Mme.  la  Marquise  d'Aubrion. 
"Who  is  this  person?"  she  asked  in  Charles'  ear,  as  she 
saw  Cruchot  for  the  first  time. 

"  My  man  of  business,"  he  answered  in  a  low  voice.  The 
Marquise  gave  M.  de  Bonfons  a  disdainful  bow,  and  left  the 
room. 

"  We  are  beginning  to  push  each  other's  fortunes  already/' 
said  the  president  dryly,  as  he  took  up  his  hat.  "  Good-day, 
cousin." 

"  The  old  cockatoo  from  Saumur  is  laughing  at  me  :  I  have 
a  great  mind  to  make  him  swallow  six  inches  of  cold  steel," 
thought  Charles.  i 

But  the  president  had  departed. 

Three  days  later  M.  de  Bonfons  was  back  in  Saumur  again, 
and  announced  his  marriage  with  Eugenie.  After  about  six 
months  he  received  his  appointment  as  Councilor  to  the 
Court-Royal  at  Angers,  and  they  went  thither.  But  before 
Eugenie  left  Saumur  she  melted  down  the  trinkets  that  had 
long  been  so  sacred  and  so  dear  a  trust,  and  gave  them,  to- 
gether with  the  eight  thousand  francs  which  her  cousin  had 
returned  to  her,  to  make  a  reredos  for  the  altar  in  the  parish 
church  whither  she  had  gone  so  often  to  pray  to  God  for  him. 
Henceforward  her  life  was  spent  partly  at  Angers,  partly  at 
Saumur.  Her  husband's  devotion  to  the  government  at  a 
political  crisis  was  rewarded ;  he  was  made  President  of  the 
Chamber,  and  finally  First  President.  Then  he  awaited  a 
general  election  with  impatience  ;  he  had  visions  of  a  place  in 
the  government ;  he  had  dreams  of  a  peerage  ;  and  then,  and 
then 

\ '  Then  he  would  call  cousins  with  the  king,  I  suppose?" 
said  Nanon,  big  Nanon,  Mme.  Cornoiller,  wife  of  a  burgess 
of  Saumur,  when  her  mistress  told  her  of  these  lofty  ambitions 
and  high  destinies. 

Yet,  after  all,  none  of  these  ambitious  dreams  were  to  be  real- 


222  EUGENIE    GRANDET. 

ized,  and  the  name  of  M.  de  Bonfons  (he  had  finally  dropped 
the  patronymic  Cruchot)  was  to  undergo  no  further  transforma- 
tion. He  died  only  eight  days  after  his  appointment  as 
deputy  of  Saumur.  God,  who  sees  all  hearts,  and  who  never 
strikes  without  cause,  punished  him,  doubtless,  for  his  pre- 
sumptuous schemes,  and  for  the  lawyer's  cunning  with  which, 
accurante  Cruchot,  he  drafted  his  own  marriage  contract ;  in 
which  husband  and  wife,  in  case  there  was  no  issue  of  the  mar- 
riage, bequeathed  to  each  other  all  their  property ,  both  real  estate 
and  personalty,  without  exception  or  reservation,  dispensing  even 
with  the  formality  of  an  inventory,  provided  that  the  omission  of 
the  said  inventory  should  not  injure  their  heirs  and  assigns,  it 
being  understood  that  this  deed  of  gift,  etc. ,  etc. ,  a  clause  which 
may  throw  some  light  on  the  profound  respect  with  which 
the  president  constantly  showed  for  his  wife's  desire  to  live 
apart.  Women  cited  M.  le  Premier  President  as  one  of  the 
most  delicately  considerate  of  men,  and  pitied  him,  and  often 
went  so  far  as  to  blame  Eugenie  for  clinging  to  her  passion 
and  her  sorrow  ;  mingling,  according  to  their  wont,  cruel 
insinuations  with  their  criticisms  of  the  president's  wife. 

"If  Mme.  de  Bonfons  lives  apart  from  her  husband,  she 
must  be  in  very  bad  health,  poor  thing.  Is  she  likely  to 
recover  ?  What  can  be  the  matter  with  her  ?  Is  it  cancer  or 
gastritis,  or  what  is  it?  Why  does  she  not  go  to  Paris  and 
see  some  specialist  ?  She  has  looked  very  sallow  for  a  long 
time  past.  How  can  she  not  wish  to  have  a  child  ?  They 
say  she  is  very  fond  of  her  husband;  why  not  give  him  an 
heir  in  his  position?  Do  you  know,  it  is  really  dreadful  ! 
If  it  is  only  some  notion  which  she  has  taken  into  her  head, 
it  is  unpardonable.     Poor  president !  " 

There  is  a  certain  keen  insight  and  quick  apprehensiveness 
that  is  the  gift  of  a  lonely  and  meditative  life — and  loneliness, 
and  sorrow,  and  the  discipline  of  the  last  few  years  had  given 
Eugenie  this  clairvoyance  of  the  narrow  lot.  She  knew 
within   herself  that  the  president  was  anxious  for  her  death 


EUGENIE    GRAND ET.  223 

that  he  might  be  the  sole  possessor  of  the  colossal  fortune, 
now  still  further  increased  by  the  deaths  of  the  Abbe  and  the 
notary,  whom  Providence  had  lately  seen  fit  to  promote  from 
works  to  rewards.  The  poor  solitary  woman  understood 
and  pitied  the  president.  Unworthy  hopes  and  selfish  calcu- 
lations were  his  strongest  motives  for  respecting  Eugenie's 
hopeless  passion.  To  give  life  to  a  child  would  be  death  to 
the  egoistical  dreams  and  ambitions  that  the  president  hugged 
within  himself;  was  it  for  all  these  things  that  his  career  was 
cut  short?  while  she  must  remain  in  her  prison  house,  and 
the  coveted  gold  for  which  she  cared  so  little  was  to  be 
heaped  upon  her.  It  was  she  who  was  to  live,  with  the 
thought  of  heaven  always  before  her,  and  holy  thoughts  for 
her  companions,  to  give  help  and  comfort  secretly  to  those 
who  were  in  distress.  Mme.  de  Bonfons  was  left  a  widow 
three  years  after  her  marriage,  with  an  income  of  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  livres. 

She  is  beautiful  still,  with  the  beauty  of  a  woman  who  is 
nearly  forty  years  of  age.  Her  face  is  very  pale  and  quiet 
now,  and  there  is  a  tinge  of  sadness  in  the  low  tones  of 
her  voice.  She  has  simple  manners,  all  the  dignity  of  one 
who  has  passed  through  great  sorrows,  and  the  saintliness  of  a 
soul  unspotted  by  the  world  ;  and,  no  less,  the  rigidness  of  an 
old  maid,  the  little  penurious  ways  and  narrow  ideas  of  a  dull 
country  town. 

Although  she  has  eight  hundred  thousand  livres  a  year, 
she  lives  just  as  she  used  to  do  in  the  days  of  stinted 
allowances  of  fuel  and  food  while  she  was  still  Eugenie 
Grandet ;  the  fire  is  never  lighted  in  the  parlor  before  or  after 
the  dates  fixed  by  her  father,  all  the  regulations  in  force  in 
the  days  of  her  girlhood  are  still  adhered  to.  She  dresses  as 
her  mother  did.  That  cold,  sunless,  dreary  house,  always 
overshadowed  by  the  dark  ramparts,  is  like  her  own  life. 

She  looks  carefully  after  her  affairs ;  her  wealth  accumulates 
from  year  to  year ;  perhaps  she  might  even   be  called  parsi- 


224  EUGENIE    GRAND ET. 

monious,  if  it  were  not  for  the  noble  use  she  makes  of  her 
fortune.  Various  pious  and  charitable  institutions,  alms- 
houses, and  orphan  asylums,  a  richly  endowed  public  library, 
and  donations  to  various  churches  in  Saumur,  are  a  sufficient 
answer  to  the  charge  of  avarice  which  some  few  people  have 
brought  against  her. 

They  sometimes  speak  of  her  in  joke  as  mademoiselle,  but, 
in  fact,  people  stand  somewhat  in  awe  of  Mme.  de  Boufons. 
It  was  as  if  she,  whose  heart  went  out  so  readily  to  others, 
was  always  to  be  the  victim  of  their  interested  calculations, 
and  to  be  cut  off  from  them  by  a  barrier  of  distrust ;  as  if  for 
all  warmth  and  brightness  in  her  life  she  was  to  find  only  the 
pale  glitter  of  metal. 

"No  one  loves  me  but  you,"  she  would  sometimes  say  to 
Nan  on. 

Yet  her  hands  are  always  ready  to  bind  the  wounds  that 
other  eyes  do  not  see,  in  any  house  ;  and  her  way  to  heaven 
is  one  long  succession  of  kindness  and  good  deeds.  The  real 
greatness  of  her  soul  has  risen  above  the  cramping  influences 
of  her  early  life.  And  this  is  the  life-history  of  a  woman  who 
dwells  in  the  world,  yet  is  not  of  it ;  a  woman  so  grandly 
fittedjo  be  a  wife  and  motligr^hut-w&QJTps  SSEer  hiipTTanfl 
nor  children  nor  kindred. 

07TaTe"~Tfi(f  good  folk  of  Saumur  have  begun  to  talk  of  a 
second  marriage  for  her.  Rumor  is  busy  with  her  name  and 
that  of  the  Marquis  de  Froidfond  ;  indeed,  his  family  have 
begun  to  surround  the  rich  widow,  just  as  the  Cruchots  once 
flocked  about  Eugenie  Grandet.  Nanon  and  Cornoiller,  so  it 
is  said,  are  in  the  interest  of  the  Marquis,  but  nothing  could 
be  more  false  ;  for  big  Nanon  and  Cornoiller  have  neither  of 
them  wit  enough  to  understand  the  corruptions  of  the  world. 


THE  MARANAS. 

(Les  Marana.) 
To  Madame  la  Comtesse  Merlin. 

In  spite  of  the  discipline  enforced  by  Marshal  Suchet  in  the 
division  he  commanded  in  the  Peninsular  War,  all  his  efforts 
could  not  restrain  an  outbreak  of  license  and  tumult  at  the 
taking  of  Taragona.  Indeed,  according  to  trustworthy  mili- 
tary authorities,  the  intoxication  of  victory  resulted  in  some- 
thing very  like  a  sack  of  the  town.  Pillage  was  promptly  put 
down  by  the  marshal  ;  and  as  soon  as  order  was  restored,  a 
commandant  appointed,  the  military  administrators  appeared 
upon  the  scene,  and  the  town  began  to  wear  a  nondescript 
aspect — the  organization  was  French,  but  the  Spanish  popula- 
tion was  left  free  to  follow  in  petto  its  own  national  customs. 
It  would  be  a  task  of  no  little  difficulty  to  determine  the 
exact  duration  of  the  pillage,  but  its  cause  (like  that  of  most 
sublunary  events)  is  sufficiently  easy  to  discover. 

In  the  marshal's  division  of  the  army  there  was  a  regiment 
composed  almost  entirely  of  Italians,  commanded  by  a  certain 
Colonel  Eugene,  a  man  of  extraordinary  valor,  a  second 
Murat,  who,  having  come  to  the  trade  of  war  too  late,  had 
gained  no  Grand  Duchy  of  Berg,  no  Kingdom  of  Naples,  nor 
a  ball  through  the  heart  at  Pizzo.  But  if  he  had  received  no 
crown,  his  chances  of  receiving  bullets  were  admirably  good  ; 
and  it  would  have  been  in  no  wise  astonishing  if  he  had  had 
more  than  one  of  them.  This  regiment  was  made  up  from 
the  wrecks  of  the  Italian  Legion,  which  is  in  Italy  very  much 
what  the  colonial  battalions  are  in  France.  Stationed  on  the 
isle  of  Elba,  it  had  provided  an  honorable  way  out  of  the 
15  (225) 


226  THE   MAR  ANAS. 

difficulty  experienced  by  families  with  regard  to  the  future  of 
unmanageable  sons,  as  well  as  a  career  for  those  great  men 
spoiled  in  the  making,  whom  society  is  too  ready  to  brand  as 
bad  subjects.  All  of  them  were  men  misunderstood,  for  the 
most  part — men  who  may  become  heroes  if  a  woman's  smile 
raises  them  out  of  the  beaten  track  of  glory ;  or  terrible  after 
an  orgy,  when  some  ugly  suggestion,  dropped  by  a  boon  com- 
panion, has  gained  possession  of  their  minds. 

Napoleon  had  enrolled  these  men  of  energy  in  the  Sixth 
Regiment  of  the  line,  hoping  to  metamorphose  them  into 
generals,  with  due  allowance  for  the  gaps  to  be  made  in  their 
ranks  by  bullets;  but  the  Emperor's  estimate  of  the  ravages 
of  death  proved  more  correct  than  the  rest  of  his  calculations. 
It  was  often  decimated,  but  its  character  remained  the  same ; 
and  the  Sixth  acquired  a  name  for  splendid  bravery  in  the 
field,  and  the  very  worst  reputation  in  private  life. 

These  Italians  had  lost  their  captain  during  the  siege  of 
Taragona.  He  was  the  famous  Bianchi  who  had  laid  a  wager 
during  the  campaign  that  he  would  eat  a  Spanish  sentinel's 
heart — and  won  his  bet.  The  story  of  this  pleasantry  of  the 
camp  is  told  elsewhere  in  the  "  Scenes  de  la  Vie  Parisienne ;" 
therein  will  be  found  certain  details  which  corroborate  what 
has  been  said  here  concerning  the  legion.  Bianchi,  the  prince 
of  those  fiends  incarnate  who  had  earned  the  double  reputa- 
tion of  the  regiment,  possessed  the  chivalrous  sense  of  honor 
which  in  the  army  covers  a  multitude  of  the  wildest  excesses. 
In  a  word,  had  he  lived  a  few  centuries  earlier,  he  would  have 
made  a  gallant  buccaneer.  Only  a  few  days  before  he  fell, 
he  had  distinguished  himself  by  such  conspicuous  courage  in 
action,  that  the  marshal  sought  to  recognize  it.  Bianchi  had 
refused  promotion,  pension,  or  a  fresh  decoration,  and  asked 
as  a  favor  to  be  allowed  to  mount  the  first  scaling-ladder  at 
the  assault  of  Taragona  as  his  sole  reward.  The  marshal 
granted  the  request,  and  forgot  his  promise ;  but  Bianchi 
himself  put  him  in  mind  of  it  and  of  Bianchi,  for  the  berserker 


THE  MARANAS.  227 

captain  was  the  first  to  plant  the  flag  of  France  upon  the  wall ; 
and  there  he  fell,  killed  by  a  monk. 

This  historical  digression  is  necessary  to  explain  how  it 
came  to  pass  that  the  Sixth  Regiment  of  the  line  was  the  first 
to  enter  Taragona,  and  how  the-  tumult,  sufficiently  natural 
after  a  town  has  been  carried  by  storm,  degenerated  so 
quickly  into  an  attempt  to  sack  it.  Moreover,  among  these 
men  of  iron,  there  were  two  officers,  otherwise  but  little 
remarkable,  who  were  destined  by  force  of  circumstances  to 
play  an  important  part  in  this  story. 

The  first  of  these,  a  captain  on  the  clothing  establishment — 
half-civilian,  half-officer — was  generally  said,  in  soldierly  lan- 
guage, to  "  take  good  care  of  number  one." 

Outside  of  his  regiment  he  was  wont  to  swagger  and  brag 
of  his  connection  with  it ;  he  would  curl  his  mustache  and 
look  a  terrible  fellow,  but  his  mess  had  no  great  opinion  of 
him.  His  money  was  the  secret  of  his  valorous  discretion. 
For  a  double  reason,  moreover,  he  had  been  nicknamed 
"Captain  of  the  Ravens ;"  because,  in  the  first  place,  he 
scented  the  powder  a  league  away ;  and,  in  the  second,  scurried 
out  of  range  like  a  bird  on  the  wing ;  the  nickname  was  like- 
wise a  harmless  soldier's  joke,  a  personality  of  which  another 
might  have  been  proud.  Captain  Montefiore,  of  the  illustrious 
family  of  the  Montefiori  of  Milan  (though  by  the  law  of  the 
kingdom  of  Italy  he  might  not  bear  his  title),  was  one  of  the 
prettiest  fellows  in  the  army.  Possibly  his  beauty  may  secretly 
have  been  additional  cause  of  his  prudence  on  the  field  of 
battle.  A  wound  in  the  face  by  spoiling  his  profile,  scarring 
his  forehead,  or  seaming  his  cheeks,  would  have  spoiled  one 
of  the  finest  heads  in  Italy,  and  destroyed  the  delicate  propor- 
tions of  a  countenance  such  as  no  woman  ever  pictured  in 
dreams.  In  Girodet's  picture  of  the  "Revolt  of  Cairo" 
there  is  a  young  dying  Turk  who  has  the  same  type  of  face, 
the  same  melancholy  expression,  of  which  women  are  nearly 
always  the  dupes.     The  Marchese  di  Montefiore  had  property 


228  THE   MARANAS. 

of  his  own,  but  it  was  entailed,  and  he  had  anticipated  his 
income  for  several  years  in  order  to  pay  for  escapades  peculiarly 
Italian  and  inconceivable  in  Paris.  He  had  ruined  himself  by 
running  a  theatre  in  Milan  for  the  special  purpose  of  foisting 
upon  the  public  a  cantatrice  who  could  not  sing,  but  who 
loved  him  (so  he  said)  to  distraction. 

So  Montefiore  the  captain  had  good  prospects,  and  was  in 
ho  hurry  to  risk  them  for  a  paltry  scrap  of  red  ribbon.  If  he 
was  no  hero,  he  was  at  any  rate  a  philosopher  ;  besides,  pre- 
cedents (if  it  is  allowable  to  make  use  of  parliamentary  ex- 
pressions in  this  connection),  precedents  are  forthcoming. 
Did  not  Philip  II.  swear  during  the  battle  of  Saint-Quentin 
that  he  would  never  go  under  fire  again,  nor  near  it,  save  the 
faggots  of  the  Inquisition  ?  Did  not  the  Duke  of  Alva  ap- 
prove the  notion  that  the  involuntary  exchange  of  a  crown 
for  a  cannon-ball  was  the  worst  kind  of  trade  in  the  world? 
Monteflore,  therefore,  as  a  marquis,  was  of  Philip  II. 's  way  of 
thinking  ;  he  was  a  Philippist  in  his  quality  of  gay  young  bach- 
elor, and  in  other  respects  quite  as  astute  a  politician  as  Philip 
II.  himself.  He  comforted  himself  for  his  nickname,  and 
for  the  slight  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  by  his  regiment, 
with  the  thought  that  his  comrades  were  sorry  scamps ;  and 
even  if  they  should  survive  this  war  of  extermination,  their 
opinion  of  him  was  not  likely  to  gain  much  credence  hereafter. 
Was  not  his  face  as  good  as  a  certificate  of  merit?  He  saw 
himself  a  colonel  through  some  accident  of  feminine  favor ; 
or,  by  a  skillfully  effected  transition,  the  captain  on  the  cloth- 
ing establishment  would  become  an  orderly,  and  the  orderly 
would  in  turn  become  the  aide-de-camp  of  some  good-natured 
marshal.  The  bravery  of  the  uniform  and  the  bravery  of  the 
marf  were  all  as  one  to  the  captain  on  the  clothing  establish- 
ment. So  some  broad  sheet  would  one  day  or  other  call  him 
"  the  brave  Colonel  Monteflore,"  and  so  forth.  Then  he 
would  have  a  hundred  thousand  scudi  a  year,  he  would  marry 
the  daughter  of  a  noble  house,  and  no  one  would  dare  to 


THE  MARANAS.  229 

breathe  a  word  against  his  courage  nof  to  seek  to  verify  his 
wounds.  Finally,  it  should  be  stated  that  Captain  Monte- 
fiore  had  a  friend  in  the  person  of  the  quartermaster,  a  Pro- 
vencal, born  in  the  Nice  district,  Diard  by  name. 

A  friend,  be  it  in  the  convict's  prison  or  in  an  artist's 
garret,  is  a  compensation  for  many  troubles ;  and  Montefiore 
and  Diard,  being  a  pair  of  philosophers,  found  compensations 
for  their  hard  life  in  companionship  in  vice,  much  as  two 
artists  will  lull  the  consciousness  of  their  hardships  to  sleep 
by  hopes  of  future  fame.  Both  looked  at  war  as  a  means  to 
an  end,  and  not  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  frankly  called  those 
who  fell,  fools  for  their  pains.  '  Chance  had  made  soldiers  of 
both,  when  they  should  have  been  by  rights  deliberating  in  a 
congress  round  a  table  covered  with  a  green  cloth.  Nature 
had  cast  Montefiore  in  the  mould  of  Rizzio,  and  Diard  in  the 
crucible  whence  she  turns  out  diplomatists.  Both  possessed 
the  excitable,  nervous,  half-feminine  temperament,  which  is 
always  energetic,  be  it  in  good  or  evil ;  always  at  the  mercy 
of  the  caprices  of  the  moment,  and  swayed  by  an  impulse 
equally  unaccountable  to  commit  a  crime  or  to  do  a  generous 
deed,  to  act  as  a  hero  or  as  a  craven  coward.  The  fate  of 
such  natures  as  these  depends  at  every  moment  of  their  lives 
upon  the  intensity  of  the  impressions  produced  upon  the  ner- 
vous system  by  vehement  and  short-lived  passions. 

Diard  was  a  very  fair  accountant,  but  not  one  of  the  men 
would  have  trusted  him  with  his  purse,  or  made  him  his  exec- 
utor, possibly  by  reason  of  the  suspicion  that  the  soldier  feels 
of  officialdom.  The  quartermaster's  character  was  not  want- 
ing in  dash,  nor  in  a  certain  boyish  enthusiasm,  which  is  apt 
to  wear  off  as  a  man  grows  older  and  reasons  and  makes  fore- 
casts. And  for  the  rest,  his  humor  was  variable  as  the  beauty 
of  a  blonde  can  sometimes  be.  He  was  a  great  talker  on 
every  subject.  He  called  himself  an  artist;  and,  in  imitation 
of  two  celebrated  generals,  collected  works  of  art,  simply,  he 
asserted,  to  secure  them  for  posterity.     His  comrades  would 


230  THE  MARANAS. 

have  been  hard  put  to  it  to  say  what  they  really  thought  of 
him.  Many  of  them,  who  were  wont  to  borrow  of  him  at 
need,  fancied  that  he  was  rich ;  but  he  was  a  gambler,  and  a 
gambler's  property  cannot  be  called  his  own.  He  played 
heavily,  so  did  Montefiore,  and  all  the  officers  played  with 
them  ;  for  to  man's  shame,  be  it  said,  plenty  of  men  will 
meet  on  terms  of  equality  round  a  gaming  table  with  others 
whom  they  do  not  respect  and  will  not  recognize  if  they  meet 
them  elsewhere.  It  was  Montefiore  who  had  made  that  bet 
with  Bianchi  about  the  Spaniard's  heart. 

Montefiore  and  Diard  were  among  the  last  to  advance  to  the 
assault  of  the  place,  but  they  were  the  first  to  go  forward  into 
the  town  itself  when  it  was  taken.  Such  things  happen  in  a 
melee,  and  the  two  friends  were  old  hands.  Mutually  sup- 
ported, therefore,  they  plunged  boldly  into  a  labyrinth  of 
narrow  dark  little  streets,  each  bent  upon  his  own  private 
affairs  ;  the  one  in  search  of  Madonnas  on  canvas,  and  the 
other  of  living  originals. 

In  some  quarter  of  Taragona,  Diard  espied  a  piece  of  eccle- 
siastical architecture,  saw  that  it  was  the  porch  of  a  convent, 
and  that  the  doors  had  been  forced,  and  rushed  in  to  restrain 
the  fury  of  the  soldiery.  He  was  not  a  moment  too  soon. 
Two  Parisians  were  about  to  riddle  one  of  Albani's  Virgins 
with  shot,  and  of  these  light  infantrymen  he  bought  the 
picture,  undismayed  by  the  mustaches  with  which  the  zealous 
iconoclasts  had  adorned  it. 

Montefiore,  left  outside,  contemplated  the  front  of  a  cloth 
merchant's  house  opposite  the  convent.  He  was  looking  it 
up  and  down,  when  a  corner  of  a  blind  was  raised,  a  girl's 
head  peered  forth,  a  glance  like  a  lightning  flash  answered  his, 
and — a  shot  was  fired  at  him  from  the  building.  Taragona 
carried  by  assault,  Taragona  roused  to  fury,  firing  from  every 
window,  Taragona  outraged,  disheveled,  and  half-naked,  with 
French  soldiers  pouring  through  her  blazing  streets,  slaying 
there  and  being  slain,  was  surely  worth  a  glance  from  fearless 


THE   MAR  ANAS.  231 

Spanish  eyes.  What  was  it  but  a  bull-fight  on  a  grander 
scale  ?  Montefiore  forgot  the  pillaging  soldiers,  and  for  a 
moment  heard  neither  the  shrieks,  nor  the  rattle  of  musketry, 
nor  the  dull  thunder  of  the  cannon.  He,  the  Italian  liber- 
tine, tired  of  Italian  beauties,  weary  of  all  women,  dreaming 
of  an  impossible  woman  because  the  possible  had  ceased  to 
have  any  attraction  for  him,  had  never  beheld  so  exquisitely 
lovely  a  profile  as  that  of  this  Spanish  girl.  The  jaded 
voluptuary,  who  had  squandered  his  fortune  on  follies  innumer- 
able and  on  the  gratification  of  a  young  man's  endless  desires  ; 
the  most  abominable  monstrosity  that  our  society  can  produce, 
could  still  tremble.  The  bright  idea  of  setting  fire  to  the 
house  instantly  flashed  through  his  mind,  suggested,  doubtless, 
by  the  shot  from  the  patriotic  cloth  merchant's  window ;  but 
he  was  alone,  and  the  means  of  doing  it  were  to  seek,  fighting 
was  going  forward  in  the  market-place,  where  a  few  desperate 
men  still  defended  themselves. 

He  thought  better  of  it.  Diard  came  out  of  the  convent, 
Montefiore  kept  his  discovery  to  himself,  and  the  pair  made 
several  excursions  through  the  town  together;  but  on  the 
morrow  the  Italian  was  quartered  in  the  cloth  merchant's 
house,  a  very  appropriate  arrangement  for  a  captain  on  the 
clothing  establishment.  It  promised  him  the  fulfillment  of  his 
desire  to  again  see  the  Spanish  girl. 

The  first  floor  of  the  worthy  Spaniard's  abode  consisted  of 
a  vast  dimly-lighted  shop ;  protected  in  front,  as  the  old 
houses  in  the  Rue  des  Lombards  in  Paris  used  to  be,  by  heavy 
iron  bars.  Behind  the  shop  lay  the  parlor,  lighted  by  windows 
that  looked  out  into  an  inner  yard.  It  was  a  large  room, 
redolent  of  the  spirit  of  the  middle  ages,  with  its  old  dark 
pictures,  old  tapestry,  and  antique  brasier.  A  broad-plumed 
hat  hung  from  a  nail  upon  the  wall  above  a  matchlock  used  in 
guerilla  warfare,  and  a  heavy  brigand's  cloak.  The  kitchen 
lay  immediately  beyond  this  parlor,  or  living-room,  where 
meals  were  served  and  cigars  smoked ;  and  Spaniards,  talking 


232  THE   MARANAS. 

round  the  smouldering  brasier,  would  nurse  hot  wrath  and 
hatred  of  the  French  in  their  hearts. 

Silver  jugs  and  valuable  plate  stood  on  the  antique  buffet, 
but  the  room  was  fitfully  and  scantily  illuminated,  so  that  the 
daylight  scarcely  did  more  than  bring  out  faint  sparkles  from 
the  brightest  objects  in  the  room  ;  all  the  rest  of  it,  and  even 
the  faces  of  its  occupants,  were  as  dark  as  a  Dutch  interior. 
Between  the  shop  itself  and  this  apartment,  with  its  rich  sub- 
dued tones  and  old-world  aspect,  a  sufficiently  ill-lit  staircase 
led  to  a  warehouse,  where  it  was  possible  to  examine  the  stuffs 
by  the  light  from  some  ingeniously  contrived  windows.  The 
merchant  and  his  wife  occupied  the  floor  above  this  ware- 
house, and  the  apprentice  and  the  maidservant  were  lodged 
still  higher  in  the  attics  immediately  beneath  the  roof.  This 
highest  story  overhung  the  street,  and  was  supported  by 
brackets,  which  gave  a  quaint  look  to  the  house  front.  On 
the  coming  of  the  officer,  the  merchant  and  his  wife  resigned 
their  rooms  to  him  and  went  up  to  these  attics,  doubtless  to 
avoid  friction. 

Montefiore  gave  himself  out  to  be  a  Spanish  subject  by 
birth,  a  victim  to  the  tyranny  of  Napoleon,  whom  he  was 
forced  to  serve  against  his  will.  These  half-lies  produced  the 
intended  effect.  He  was  asked  to  join  the  family  at  meals,  as 
befitted  his  birth  and  rank  and  the  name  he  bore.  He  had 
his  private  reasons  for  wishing  to  conciliate  the  merchant's 
family.  He  felt  the  presence  of  his  madonna,  much  as  the 
ogre  in  the  fairytale  smelt  the  tender  flesh  of  little  Thumbkin 
and  his  brothers;  but  though  he  succeeded  in  winning  his 
host's  confidence,  the  latter  kept  the  secret  of  the  madonna 
so  well  that  the  captain  not  only  saw  no  sign  of  the  girl's 
existence  during  the  first  day  spent  beneath  the  honest  Span- 
iard's roof,  but  heard  no  sound  that  could  betray  her  presence 
in  any  part  of  the  dwelling.  The  old  house  was,  however, 
almost  entirely  built  of  wood  ;  every  noise  above  or  below 
could  be  heard  through  the  walls  and  ceilings,  and  Montefiore 


THE  MARANAS.  283 

hoped  during  the  silence  of  the  early  hours  of  night  to 
guess  the  young  girl's  whereabouts.  She  was  the  only 
daughter  of  his  host  and  hostess,  he  thought ;  probably  they 
had  shut  her  up  in  the  attics,  whither  they  themselves  had 
retired  during  the  military  occupation  of  the  town.  No  indi- 
cations, however,  betrayed  the  hiding-place  of  the  treasure. 
The  officer  might  stand  with  his  face  glued  to  the  small  leaded 
diamond-shaped  panes  of  the^  window,  looking  out  into  the 
darkness  of  the  yard  below  and  the  grim  walls  that  rose  up 
around  it,  but  no  light  gleaned  from  any  window  save  from 
those  of  the  room  overhead,  where  he  could  hear  the  old 
merchant  and  his  wife  talking,  coughing,  coming,  and  going. 
There  was  not  so  much  even  as  a  shadow  of  the  girl  to  be 
seen. 

Montefiore  was  too  cunning  to  risk  the  future  of  his  passion 
by  prowling  about  the  house  of  a  night,  by  knocking  softly  at 
all  the  doors,  or  by  other  hazardous  expedients.  His  host 
was  a  hot  patriot,  a  Spanish  father,  and  an  owner  of  bales  of 
cloth ;  bound,  therefore,  in  each  character  to  be  suspicious. 
Discovery  would  be  utter  ruin,  so  Montefiore  resolved  to  bide 
his  time  patiently,  hoping  everything  from  the  carelessness  of 
human  nature  ;  for  if  rogues,  with  the  best  of  reasons  for 
being  cautious,  will  forget  themselves  in  the  long  run,  so  still 
more  will  honest  men. 

Next  day  he  discovered  a  kind  of  hammock  slung  in  the 
kitchen — evidently  the  servant  slept  there.  The  apprentice, 
it  seemed,  spent  the  night  on  the  counter  in  the  shop. 

At  supper-time,  on  the  second  day,  Montefiore  cursed  Na- 
poleon till  he  saw  his  host's  sombre  face  relax  somewhat. 
The  man  was  a  typical,  swarthy  Spaniard,  with  a  head  such  as 
used  to  be  carved  on  the  head  of  a  rebeck.  A  smile  of 
gleeful  hatred  lurked  among  the  wrinkles  about  his  wife's 
mouth.  The  lamplight  and  fitful  gleams  from  the  brasier 
filled  the  stately  room  with  capricious  answering  reflections. 
The  hostess  was  just  offering  a  cigarette  to  their  semi-com- 


234  THE  MARANAS. 

patriot,  when  Montefiore  heard  the  rustle  of  a  dress,  and  a 
chair  was  overturned  behind  the  tapestry  hangings. 

" There  !  "  cried  the  merchant's  wife,  turning  pale,  "may 
all  the  saints  send  that  no  misfortune  has  befallen  us  !  " 

"  So  you  have  some  one  in  there,  have  you?"  asked  the 
Italian,  who  betrayed  no  sign  of  emotion. 

The  merchant  let  fall  some  injurious  remarks  as  to  girls. 
His  wife,  in  alarm,  opened  a  secret  door,  and  brought  in  the 
Italian's  madonna,  half-dead  with  fear.  The  delighted  lover 
scarcely  seemed  to  notice  the  girl ;  but,  lest  he  might  overdo 
the  affectation  of  indifference,  he  glanced  at  her,  and  turning 
to  his  host,  asked  in  his  mother  tongue : 

"  Is  she  your  daughter,  senor?  " 

Perez  de  Lagounia  (for  that  was  the  merchant's  name)  had 
had  extensive  business  connections  in  Genoa,  Florence,  and 
Leghorn ;  he  knew  Italian,  and  replied  in  that  language. 

"  No.  If  she  had  been  my  own  daughter,  I  should  have 
taken  fewer  precautions,  but  the  child  was  put  into  our  charge, 
and  I  would  die  sooner  than  allow  the  slightest  harm  to  befall 
her.     But  what  sense  can  you  expect  of  a  girl  of  eighteen?" 

"She  is  very  beautiful,"  Montefiore  said  carelessly.  He 
did  not  look  at  her  again. 

"The  mother  is  sufficiently  famous  for  her  beauty,"  an- 
swered the  merchant.  And  they  continued  to  smoke  and  to 
watch  each  other. 

Montefiore  had  imposed  upon  himself  the  hard  task  of 
avoiding  the  least  look  that  might  compromise  his  attitude 
of  indifference  ;  but  as  Perez  turned  his  head  aside  to  spit, 
the  Italian  stole  a  glance  at  the  girl,  and  again  those  spark- 
ling eyes  met  his.  In  that  one  glance,  with  the  experienced 
vision  that  gives  to  a  voluptuary  or  a  sculptor  the  power  of 
discerning  the  outlines  of  the  form  beneath  the  draperies,  he 
beheld  a  masterpiece  created  to  know  all  the  happiness  of 
love.  He  saw  a  delicately  fair  face,  which  the  sun  of  Spain 
had  slightly  tinged  with  a  warm   brown,   that   added  to  a 


THE  MARANAS.  235 

seraphically  calm  expression  a  flush  of  pride,  a  suffused  glow 
beneath  the  translucent  fairness,  due,  perhaps,  to  the  pure 
Moorish  blood  that  brought  animation  and  color  into  it. 
Her  hair,  knotted  on  the  crown  of  her  head,  fell  in  thick 
curls  about  transparent  ears  like  a  child's,  surrounding  them 
with  dark  shadows  that  made  a  framework  for  the  white 
throat  with  its  faint  blue  veins,  in  strong  contrast  with  the 
fiery  eyes  and  the  red  finely-curved  mouth.  The  petticoat  of 
her  country  displayed  the  curving  outlines  of  a  figure  as  pliant 
as  a  branch  of  willow.  This  was  no  "  Madonna"  of  Italian 
painters,  but  "The  Madonna"  of  Spanish  art,  the  Virgin  of 
Murillo,  the  only  artist  daring  enough  to  depict  the  rapture 
of  the  Conception,  a  delirious  flight  of  the  fervid  imagination 
of  the  boldest  and  most  sensuous  of  painters.  Three  qualities 
were  blended  in  this  young  girl ;  any  one  of  them  would  have 
sufficed  to  exalt  a  woman  into  a  divinity — the  purity  of  the 
pearl  in  the  depths  of  the  sea,  the  sublime  exaltation  of  a 
Saint  Theresa,  and  a  voluptuous  charm  of  which  she  was  her- 
self unconscious.  Her  presence  had  the  power  of  a  talisman. 
Everything  in  the  ancient  room  seemed  to  have  grown  young 
to  Montefiore's  eyes  since  she  entered  it.  But  if  the  appari- 
tion was  exquisite,  the  stay  was  brief;  she  was  taken  back  to 
her  mysterious  abiding-place,  and  thither,  shortly  afterwards, 
the  servant  took  a  light  and  her  supper,  without  any  attempt 
at  concealment. 

"You  do  very  wisely  ta  keep  her  out  of  sight,"  said 
Montefiore  in  Italian.  "I  will  keep  your  secret.  The 
deuce  !  some  of  our  generals  would  be  quite  capable  of  carry- 
ing her  off  by  force." 

Montefiore,  in  his  intoxication,  went  so  far  as  to  think  of 
marrying  the  fair  unknown.  With  this  idea  in  his  mind,  he 
put  some  questions  to  his  host.  Perez  willingly  told  him  the 
strange  chance  that  had  given  him  his  ward ;  indeed,  the 
prudent  Spaniard,  knowing  Montefiore's  rank  and  name,  of 
which  he  had  heard  in  Italy,  was  anxious  to  confide  the  story 


236  THE   MARANAS. 

to  his  guest,  to  show  how  strong  were  the  barriers  raised 
between  the  young  girl  and  seduction.  Although  in  the  good 
man's  talk  there  was  a  certain  homely  eloquence  and  force  in 
keeping  with  his  simple  manner  of  life,  and  with  that  carbine 
shot  at  Montefiore  from  the  window,  his  story  will  be  better 
given  in  an  abbreviated  form. 

When  the  French  Republic  revolutionized  the  manners  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  countries  which  served  as  the  theatre  of 
its  wars,  a  fille-de-joie,  driven  from  Venice  after  the  fall  of 
Venice,  came  to  Taragona.  Her  life  had  been  a  tissue  of 
romantic  adventure  and  strange  vicissitudes.  On  no  woman 
belonging  to  her  class  had  gold  been  showered  so  often  ;  so 
often  the  caprice  of  some  great  lord,  struck  with  her  extraor- 
dinary beauty,  had  heaped  jewels  upon  her,  and  all  the  luxu- 
ries of  wealth,  for  a  time.  For  her  this  meant  flowers  and 
carriages,  pages  and  tire-women,  palaces  and  pictures,  insolent 
pride,  journeys  like  a  progress  of  Catherine  II.,  the  life  of  an 
absolute  queen,  in  fact,  whose  caprices  were  law,  and  whose 
whims  were  more  than  obeyed  ;  and  then — suddenly  the  gold 
would  utterly  vanish — how,  neither  she  nor  any  one  else,  man 
of  science,  physicist,  or  chemist  could  tell,  and  she  was  re- 
turned again  to  the  streets  and  to  poverty,  with  nothing  in  the 
world  save  her  all-powerful  beauty.  Yet  through  it  all  she 
lived  without  taking  any  thought  for  the  past,  the  present,  or 
the  future.  Thrown  upon  the  world,  and  maintained  in  her 
extremity  by  some  poor  officer,  a  gambler,  adored  for  his 
mustache,  she  would  attach  herself  to  him  like  a  dog  to  his 
master,  and  console  him  for  the  hardships  of  a  soldier's  life, 
in  all  of  which  she  shared,  sleeping  as  lightly  under  the  roof 
of  a  garret  as  beneath  the  richest  of  silk  canopies.  Whether 
she  was  in  Spain  or  Italy,  she  punctually  adhered  to  religious 
observances.  More  than  once  she  had  bidden  love  **  return 
to-morrow,  to-day  I  am  God's." 

But  this  clay  in  which  gold  and  spices  were  mingled,  this 
utter  recklessness,  these  storms  of  passion,  the  religious  faith 


THE  MARA X AS  237 

lying  in  the  heart  like  a  diamond  in  the  mud,  the  life  begun 
and  ended  in  the  hospital,  the  continual  game  of  hazard 
played  with  the  soul  and  body  as  its  stake ;  this  Alchemy  of 
Life,  in  short,  with  vice  fanning  the  flame  beneath  the  cruci- 
ble in  which  great  careers  and  fair  inheritances  and  fortune 
and  the  honor  of  illustrious  names  were  melted  away  ;  all 
these  were  the  products  of  a  peculiar  genius,  faithfully  trans- 
mitted from  mother  to  daughter  from  the  times  of  the  middle 
ages.  The  woman  was  called  La  Marana.  In  her  family, 
whose  descent  since  the  thirteenth  century  was  reckoned 
exclusively  on  the  spindle  side — the  idea,  person,  authority, 
nay,  the  very  name  of  a  father^  had  been  absolutely  unknown. 
The  name  of  Marana  was  for  her  what  the  dignity  of  Stuart 
was  to  the  illustrious  race  of  kings  of  Scotland,  a  title  of 
honor  substituted  for  the  patronymic,  when  the  office  became 
hereditary  in  their  family. 

In  former  times,  when  France,  Spain,  and  Italy  possessed 
common  interests,  which  at  times  bound  them  closely  together, 
and  at  least  as  frequently  embroiled  all  three  in  wars,  the 
word  Marana,  in  its  widest  acceptation,  meant  a  courtesan. 
In  those  ages  these  women  had  a  definite  status  of  which  no 
memory  now  exists.  In  France,  Ninon  de  Lenclos  and 
Marion  Delorme  alone  played  such  a  part  as  the  Imperias,  the 
Catalinas,  and  Maranas  who  in  the  preceding  centuries  exer- 
cised the  powers  of  the  cassock,  the  robe,  and  the  sword. 
There  is  a  church  somewhere  in  Rome  built  by  an  Imperia  in 
a  fit  of  penitence,  as  Rhodope  of  old  once  built  a  pyramid  in 
Egypt.  The  epithet  by  which  this  family  of  outcasts  once 
was  branded  became  at  last  their  name  in  earnest,  and  even 
something  like  a  patent  of  nobility  for  vice,  by  establishing 
its  antiquity  beyond  cavil. 

But  for  the  La  Marana  of  the  nineteenth  century  there 
came  a  day,  whether  it  was  a  day  of  splendor  or  of  misery, 
v.o  man  knows,  for  the  problem  is  a  secret  between  her  soul 
and  God  ;  but  it  was  surely  in  an  hour  of  melancholy,  when 


238  THE  MARANAS. 

religion  made  its  voice  heard,  that  with  her  head  in  the  skies 
she  became  conscious  of  the  slough  in  which  her  feet  were 
set.  Then  she  cursed  the  blood  in  her  veins ;  she  cursed  her- 
self; she  trembled  to  think  that  she  should  bear  a  daughter; 
and  vowed,  as  these  women  vow,  with  the  honor  and  resolution 
of  the  convict,  that  is  to  say,  with  the  strongest  resolution, 
the  most  scrupulous  honor  to  be  found  under  the  sun  ;  making 
her  vow,  therefore,  before  an  altar,  and  consecrating  it 
thereby,  that  her  daughter  should  lead  a  virtuous  and  holy 
life,  that  of  this  long  race  of  lost  and  sinful  women  there 
should  come  at  last  one  angel  who  should  appear  for  them  in 
heaven.  That  vow  made,  the  blood  of  the  Marana  regained 
its  sway,  and  again  the  courtesan  plunged  into  her  life  of 
adventure,  with  one  more  thought  in  her  heart.  At  length  she 
loved,  with  the  violent  love  of  the  prostitute,  as  Henrietta 
Wilson  loved  Lord  Ponsonby,  as  Mademoiselle  Dupuis  loved 
Bolingbroke,  as  the  Marchesa  di  Pescara  loved  her  husband  ; 
nay,  she  did  not  love,  she  adored  a  fair-haired  half-feminine 
creature,  investing  him  with  all  the  virtues  that  she  had  not, 
and  taking  all  his  vices  upon  herself.  Of  this  mad  union  with 
a  weakling,  a  union  blessed  neither  of  God  nor  man,  only  to 
be  excused  by  the  happiness  it  brings,  but  never  absolved 
by  happiness ;  a  union  for  which  the  most  brazen  front  must 
one  day  blush,  a  daughter  was  born,  a  daughter  to  be  saved,  a 
daughter  for  whom  La  Marana  desired  a  stainless  life,  and, 
above  all  things,  the  instincts  of  womanliness  which  she  herself 
had  not.  Thenceforward,  in  poverty  or  prosperity,  La  Marana 
bore  within  her  heart  a  pure  affection,  the  fairest  of  all  human 
sentiments,  because  it  is  the  least  selfish.  Love  has  its  own 
tinge  of  egoism,  but  there  is  no  trace  of  it  in  a  mother's 
affect  ion. 

And  La  Marana's  motherhoood  meant  more"  to  her  than  to 
other  women.  It  was  perhaps  her  hope  of  salvation,  a  plank 
to  cling  to  in  the  shipwreck  of  her  eternity.  Was  she  not 
accomplishing  part  of  her  sacred  task  on  earth  by  sending 


THE  MARANAS.  239 

one  more  angel  to  heaven  ?  Was  not  this  a  better  thing 
than  a  tardy  repentance  ?  Was  there  any  other  way  now  left 
to  her  of  sending  up  prayers  from  a  pure  heart  to  God  ? 

When  her  daughter  was  given  to  her,  her  Maria- Juana- 
Pepita  (the  little  one  should  have  had  the  whole  calendar  for 
patron  saints  if  the  mother  could  have  had  her  will),  then  La 
Marana  set  before  herself  so  high  an  ideal  of  the  dignity  of 
motherhood  that  she  sought  a  truce  from  her  life  of  sin. 
She  would  live  virtuously  and  alone.  There  should  be  no 
more  midnight  revels  nor  wanton  days.  All  her  fortunes, 
all  her  happiness  lay  in  the  child's  fragile  cradle.  The  sound 
of  the  little  voice  made  an  oasis  for  her  amid  the  burning 
sands  of  her  life.  How  should  this  love  be  compared  with 
any  other?  Were  not  all  human  affections  blended  in  it 
with  every  hope  of  heaven  ? 

La  Marana  determined  that  no  stain  should  rest  upon  her 
daughter's  life,  save  that  of  the  original  sin  of  her  birth,  which 
she  strove  to  cleanse  by  a  baptism  in  all  social  virtues ;  so  she 
asked  of  the  child's  young  father  a  sufficient  fortune,  and  the 
name  he  bore.  The  child  was  no  longer  Juana  Marana,  but 
Juana  dei  Mancini. 

At  last,  after  seven  years  of  joy  and  kisses,  of  rapture  and 
bliss,  the  poor  Marana  must  part  with  her  darling,  lest  she  also 
should  be  branded  with  her  hereditary  shame.  The  mother 
had  force  of  soul  sufficient  to  give  up  her  child  for  her  child's 
sake  ;  and  sought  out,  not  without  dreadful  pangs,  another 
mother  for  her,  a  family  whose  manners  she  might  learn, 
where  good  examples  would  be  set  before  her.  A  mother's 
abdication  is  an  act  either  atrocious  or  sublime ;  in  this  case, 
was  it  not  sublime  ? 

At  Taragona,  therefore,  a  lucky  accident  brought  the 
Lagounias  in  her  way,  and  in  a  manner  that  brought  out  all 
the  honorable  integrity  of  the  Spaniard  and  the  nobleness  of 
his  wife.  For  these  two,  La  Marana  appeared  like  an  angel 
that  unlocks  the  doors  of  a  prison.     The  merchant's  fortune 


240  THE  MARANAS. 

and  honor  were  in  peril  at  the  moment,  and  he  needed  prompt 
and  secret  help ;  La  Marana  handed  over  to  him  the  sum  of 
money  intended  for  Juana's  dowry,  asking  neither  for  grati- 
tude nor  for  interest.  According  to  her  peculiar  notions  of 
jurisprudence,  a  contract  was  a  matter  of  the  heart,  a  stiletto 
the  remedy  in  the  hands  of  the  weak,  and  God  the  supreme 
Court  of  Appeal. 

She  told  Dona  Lagounia  the  story  of  her  miserable  situation, 
and  confided  her  child  and  her  child's  fortune  to  the  honor  of 
old  Spain,  and  the  untarnished  integrity  that  pervaded  the 
old  house.  Dona  Lagounia  had  no  children  of  her  own,  and 
was  delighted  to  have  an  adopted  daughter  to  bring  up.  The 
courtesan  took  leave  of  her  darling,  feeling  that  the  child's 
future  was  secure,  and  that  she  had  found  a  mother  for  Juana, 
a  mother  who  would  train  her  up  to  be  a  Mancini,  and  not  a 
Marana. 

Poor  Marana,  poor  bereaved  mother,  she  went  away  from 
the  merchant's  quiet  and  humble  home,  the  abode  of  domestic 
and  family  virtue  ;  and  felt  comforted  in  her  grief  as  she 
pictured  Juana  growing  up  in  that  atmosphere  of  religion, 
piety,  and  honor,  a  maiden,  a  wife,  and  a  mother,  a  happy 
mother,  not  for  a  few  brief  years,  but  all  through  a  long  lifetime. 
The  tears  that  fell  upon  the  threshold  were  tears  that  angels 
bear  to  heaven.  Since  that  day  of  mourning  and  of  hope  La 
Marana  had  thrice  returned  to  see  her  daughter,  an  irresistible 
presentiment  each  time  bringing  her  back.  The  first  time 
Juana  had  fallen  dangerously  ill. 

"  I  knew  it  !  "  she  said  to  Perez,  as  she  entered  his  house. 

Far  away,  and  as  she  slept,  she  had  dreamed  that  Juana 
was  dying. 

She  watched  over  her  daughter  and  tended  her,  and  then 
one  morning,  when  the  danger  was  over,  she  kissed  the  sleep- 
ing girl's  forehead,  and  went  away  without  revealing  herself. 
The  mother  within  her  bade  the  courtesan  depart. 

A  second  time  La  Marana  came — this  time  to  the  church 


THE  MARANAS.  241 

where  Juana  dei  Mancini  made  her  first  communion.  The 
exiled  mother,  very  plainly  dressed,  stood  in  the  shadow 
behind  a  pillar,  and  saw  her  past  self  in  her  daughter,  saw  a 
divinely  fair  face  like  an  angel's,  pure  as  the  newly-fallen  snow 
on  the  heights  of  the  hills.  Even  in  La  Marana's  love  for 
her  child  there  was  a  trace  of  the  courtesan  ;  a  feeling  of 
jealousy  stronger  than  all  love  that  she  had  known  awoke  in 
her  heart,  and  she  left  the  church ;  she  could  no  longer  con- 
trol a  wild  desire  to  stab  Dona  Lagounia,  who  stood  there 
with  that  look  of  happiness  upon  her  face,  too  really  a  mother 
to  her  child. 

The  last  meeting  between  the  two  had  taken  place  at  Milan, 
whither  the  merchant  and  his  wife  had  gone.  La  Marana, 
sweeping  along  the  Corso  in  almost  queenly  state,  flashed  like 
lightning  upon  her  daughter's  sight,  and  was  not  recognized. 
Her  anguish  was  terrible.  This  Marana  on  whom  kisses  were 
showered  must  hunger  for  one  kiss  in  vain,  one  for  which  she 
would  have  given  all  the  others,  the  girlish  glad  caress  a 
daughter  gives  her  mother,  her  honored  mother,  her  mother  in 
whom  all  womanly  virtues  shine.  Juana  as  long  as  she  lived 
was  dead  for  her. 

"  What  is  it,  love?"  asked  the  Due  de  Lina,  and  at  the 
words  a  thought  revived  the  courtesan's  failing  heart,  a 
thought  that  gave  her  delicious  happiness — Juana  was  safe 
henceforward  !  She  might  perhaps  be  one  of  the  humblest 
of  women,  but  not  a  shameless  courtesan  to  whom  any  man 
might  say,  "  What  is  it,  love  ?  " 

Indeed,  the  merchant  and  his  wife  had  done  their  duty 
with  scrupulous  fidelity.  Juana's  fortune  in  their  hands  had 
been  doubled.  Perez  de  Lagounia  had  become  the  richest 
merchant  in  the  province,  and  in  his  feeling  towards  the 
young  girl  there  was  a  trace  of  superstition.  Her  coming  had 
saved  the  old  house  from  ruin  and  dishonor,  and  had  not  the 
presence  of  this  angel  brought  unlooked-for  prosperity?  His 
wife,  a  soul  of  gold,  a  refined  and  gentle  nature,  had  brought 
16 


242  THE   MARANAS, 

up  her  charge  devoutly ;  the  girl  was  as  pure  as  she  was 
beautiful.  Juana  was  equally  fitted  to  be  the  wife  of  a  rich 
merchant  or  of  a  noble  ;  she  had  every  qualification  for  a 
brilliant  destiny.  But  for  the  war  that  had  broken  out,  Perez, 
who  dreamed  of  living  In  Madrid,  would  ere  now  have  given 
her  in  marriage  to  some  Spanish  grandee. 

"  I  do  not  know  where  La  Marana  is  at  this  moment,"  he 
concluded  ;  "  but  wherever  she  may  be,  if  she  hears  that  our 
province  is  occupied  by  your  armies,  and  that  Taragona  has 
been  besieged,  she  is  sure  to  be  on  her  way  hither  to  watch 
over  her  daughter." 

This  story  wrought  a  change  in  the  captain's  intentions; 
he  no  longer  thought  of  making  a  Marchesa  di  Montefiore  of 
Juana  dei  Mancini.  He  recognized  the  Marana  blood  in 
that  swift  glance  the  girl  had  exchanged  with  him  from  her 
shelter  behind  the  blind,  in  the  stratagem  by  which  she  had 
satisfied  her  curiosity,  in  that  last  look  she  had  given  him  ; 
and  the  libertine  meant  to  marry  a  virtuous  wife. 

This  would  be  a  dangerous  escapade,  no  doubt,  but  the 
perils  were  of  the  kind  that  never  sink  the  courage  of  the 
most  pusillanimous,  for  love  and  its  pleasures  would  reward 
them.  There  were  obstacles  everywhere ;  there  was  the 
apprentice  who  slept  on  the  counter,  and  the  servant-maid  on 
the  makeshift  couch  in  the  kitchen  ;  Perez  and  his  wife,  who 
kept  a  dragon's  watch  by  day,  were  old,  and  doubtless  slept 
lightly;  every  sound  echoed  through  the  house,  everything 
seemed  to  put  the  adventure  beyond  the  range  of  possibilities. 
But  as  a  set-off  against  these  things,  Montefiore  had  an  ally— 
the  blood  of  the  Marana,  which  throbbed  feverishly  in  the 
heart  of  the  lovely  Italian  girl  brought  up  as  a  Spaniard,  the 
maiden  athirst  for  love.  Passion,  the  girl's  nature,  and  Mon- 
tefiore were  a  combination  that  might  defy  the  whole  world. 

Prompted  quite  as  strongly  by  the  instincts  of  a  chartered 
libertine  as  by  the  vague  inexplicable  hopes  to  which  we  give 
the  name  of  presentiments,  a  word  that  describes  them  with 


THE   MARANAS.  243 

such  startling  aptness — Montefiore  took  up  his  stand  at  his 
window,  and  spent  the  early  hours  of  the  night  there,  looking 
down  in  the  presumed  direction  of  the  secret  hiding-place, 
where  the  old  couple  had  enshrined  their  darling,  the  joy  of 
their  old  age. 

The  warehouse  on  the  entresol  (to  make  use  of  a  French 
word  that  will  perhaps  make  the  disposition  of  the  house 
clearer  to  the  reader)  separated  the  two  young  people,  so  it 
was  idle  for  the  captain  to  try  to  convey  a  message  by  means 
of  tapping  upon  the  floor,  a  shift  for  speech  that  all  lovers  can 
devise  under  such  circumstances.  Chance,  however,  came  to 
his  assistance,  or  was  it  the  young  girl  herself?  Just  as  he 
took  his  stand  at  the  window  he  saw  a  circle  of  light  that  fell 
upon  the  grim  opposite  wall  of  the  yard,  and  in  the  midst  of 
it  a  dark  silhouette,  the  form  of  Juana.  Everything  that  she 
did  was  shadowed  there  ;  from  her  attitude  and  the  move- 
ment of  her  arms,  she  seemed  to  be  arranging  her  hair  for  the 
night. 

"  Is  she  alone?"  Montefiore  asked  himself.  "  If  I  weight 
a  letter  with  a  few  coins,  will  it  be  safe  to  dangle  it  by  a 
thread  against  the  round  window  that  no  doubt  lights  her 
cell?" 

He  wrote  a  note  forthwith,  a  note  characteristic  of  the 
officer,  of  the  soldier  sent  for  reasons  of  family  expediency 
to  the  isle  of  Elba,  of  the  former  dilettante  Marquis,  fallen 
from  his  high  estate,  and  become  a  captain  on  the  clothing 
establishment.  He  wrapped  some  coins  in  the  note,  devised 
a  string  out  of  various  odds  and  ends,  tied  up  the  packet  and 
let  it  down,  without  a  sound,  into  the  very  centre  of  that 
round  brightness. 

"If  her  mother  or  the  servant  is  with  her,"  Montefiore 
thought,  '*■  I  shall  see  the  shadows  on  the  wall ;  and  if  she 
is  not  alone,  I  will  draw  up  the  cord  at  once." 

But  when,  after  pains  innumerable,  which  can  readily  be 
imagined,  the  weighted  packet  tapped  at  the  glass,  only  one 


244  THE  MARA N AS. 

shadow  appeared,  and  it  was  the  slender  figure  of  Juana  that 
flitted  across  the  wall.  Noiselessly  the  young  girl  opened  the 
circular  window,  saw  the  packet,  took  it  in,  and  stood  for  a 
while  reading  it. 

Montefiore  had  written  in  his  own  name  and  entreated  an 
interview.  He  orTered,  in  the  style  of  old  romances,  his  heart 
and  hand  to  Juana  dei  Mancini — a  base  and  commonplace 
stratagem  that  nearly  always  succeeds  !  At  Juana's  age,  is 
not  nobility  of  soul  an  added  danger?  A  poet  of  our  own 
days  has  gracefully  said  that  ''only  in  her  strength  does 
woman  yield."  Let  a  lover,  when  he  is  most  beloved,  feign 
doubts  of  the  love  that  he  inspires,  and  in  her  pride  and  her 
trust  in  him,  a  girl  would  invent  sacrifices  for  his  sake,  know- 
ing neither  the  world  nor  man's  nature  well  enough  to  retain 
her  self-command  when  passion  stirs  within  her,  and  to  over- 
whelm with  her  scorn  the  lover  who  can  accept  a  whole  life 
orTered  to  him  to  turn  away  a  groundless  reproach. 

In  our  sublimely  constituted  society  a  young  girl  is  placed 
in  a  painful  dilemma  between  the  forecasts  of  prudent  virtue 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  consequences  of  error  upon  the 
other.  If  she  resists,  it  not  seldom  happens  that  she  loses  a 
lover  and  the  first  love,  that  is  the  most  attractive  of  all ;  and 
if  she  is  imprudent,  she  loses  a  marriage.  Cast  an  eye  over 
the  vicissitudes  of  social  life  in  Paris,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
doubt  the  necessity  of  a  religion  that  shall  ensure  that  there 
are  no  more  young  girls  seduced  daily.  And  Paris  is  situated 
in  the  forty-eighth  degree  of  latitude,  while  Taragona  lies 
below  the  forty-first.  The  old  question  of  climate  is  still  use-, 
ful  to  the  novelist  seeking  an  excuse  for  the  suddenness  of  his 
catastrophe,  and  is  made  to  explain  the  imprudence  or  the 
dilatoriness  of  a  pair  of  lovers. 

Montefiore's  eyes  were  fixed  meanwhile  on  the  charming 
silhouette  in  the  midst  of  the  bright  circle.  Neither  he  nor 
Juana  could  see  each  other ;  an  unlucky  archway  above  her 
casement,  with  perverse  malignity,  cut  off  all  chances  of  com- 


THE  MARANAS.  245 

munication  by  signs,  such  as  two  lovers  can  contrive  by  lean- 
ing out  of  their  windows.  So  the  captain  concentrated  his 
whole  mind  and  attention  upon  the  round  patch  on  the  wall. 
Perhaps  all  unwittingly  the  girl's  movements  might  betray 
her  thoughts.  Here,  again  he  was  foiled.  Juana's  strange 
proceedings  gave  Montefiore  no  room  for  the  faintest  hope ; 
she  was  amusing  herself  by  cutting  up  the  billet. 

It  often  happens  that  virtue  and  discretion,  in  distrust, 
adopt  shifts  familiar  to  the  jealous  Bartholos  of  comedy- 
Juana,  having  neither  paper,  pen,  nor  ink,  was  scratching 
an  answer  with  the  point  of  a  pair  of  scissors.  In  another 
moment  she  tied  the  scrap  of  paper  to  the  string,  the  officer 
drew  it  in,  opened  it,  held  it  up  against  the  lamp,  and  read 
the  perforated  characters — "  Come,"  it  said. 

"  'Come?'  "  said  he  to  himself.  "  Poison,  and  carbine, 
and  Perez'  dagger  !  And  how  about  the  apprentice  hardly 
asleep  on  the  counter  by  this  time,  and  the  servant  in  her 
hammock,  and  the  house  booming  like  a^bass  viol  with  every 
sound  ?  why,  I  can  hear  old  Perez  snoring  away  upstairs  ! 
'  Come  !  ' Then,  has  she  nothing  to  lose  ?  " 

Acute  reflection  !  Libertines  alone  can  reason  thus  logi- 
cally, and  punish  a  woman  for  her  devotion.  The  imagina- 
tion of  man  has  created  Satan  and  Lovelace,  but  a  maiden  is 
an  angelic  being  to  whom  he  can  lend  nothing  but  his  vices ; 
so  lofty,  so  fair  is  she,  that  he  cannot  set  her  higher  nor  add 
to  her  beauty  ;  he  has  but  the  fatal  power  of  blighting  this 
creation  by  dragging  it  down  to  his  miry  level. 

Montefiore  waited  till  the  drowsiest  hour  of  the  night,  then 
in  spite  of  his  sober  second  thoughts,  he  crept  downstairs. 
He  had  taken  off  his  shoes,  and  carried  his  pistols  with  him, 
and  now  he  groped  his  way  step  by  step,  stopping  to  listen  in 
the  silence ;  trying  each  separate  stair,  straining  his  eyes 
till  he  almost  saw  in  the  darkness,  and  ready  to  turn  back  at 
any  moment  if  the  least  thing  befell  him.  He  wore  his  hand- 
somest uniform ;  he  had  perfumed  his  dark  hair,  and  taken 


246  THE   MARANAS. 

pains  with  the  toilet  that  set  off  his  natural  good  looks.  On 
occasions  like  these,  most  men  are  as  much  a  woman  as  any 
woman. 

Montefiore  managed  to  reach  the  door  of  the  girl's  secret 
hiding-place  without  difficulty.  It  was  a  little  cabinet  con- 
trived in  a  corner  which  projected  into  another  dwelling,  a 
not  unusual  freak  of  the  builder  where  ground-rents  are  high, 
and  houses  in  consequence  packed  very  tightly  together. 
Here  Juana  lived  alone,  day  and  night,  out  of  sight  of  all 
eyes.  Hitherto  she  had  slept  near  her  adopted  mother  ;  but 
when  Perez  and  his  wife  removed  to  the  top  of  the  house,  the 
arrangements  of  the  attics  did  not  permit  of  their  taking 
their  ward  thither  also.  So  Dona  Lagounia  had  left  the  girl 
to  the  guardianship  of  the  lock  of  the  secret  door,  to  the  pro- 
tection of  religious  ideas,  but  so  much  the  more  powerful  be- 
cause they  had  become  superstitions ;  and  with  the  further 
safeguards  of  a  natural  pride,  and  the  shrinking  delicacy  of 
the  sensitive  plant,  which  made  Juana  an  exception  among  her 
sex,  for  to  the  most  pathetic  innocence  Juana  Mancini  united 
no  less  the  most  passionate  aspirations.  It  had  needed  a  re- 
tired life  and  devout  training  to  quiet  and  to  cool  the  hot 
blood  of  the  Maranas  that  glowed  in  her  veins,  the  impulses 
that  her  adopted  mother  called  temptations  of  the  Evil  one. 

A  faint  gleam  of  light  beneath  the  door  in  the  panels  dis- 
covered its  whereabouts  for  Montefiore.  He  tapped  softly 
with  the  tips  of  his  finger-nails,  and  Juana  let  him  in. 
Quivering  from  head  to  foot  with  excitement,  he  met  the 
young  girl's  look  of  naive  curiosity,  and  read  the  most  com- 
plete ignorance  of  her  peril,  and  a  sort  of  childlike  admira- 
tion in  her  eyes.  He  stood,  awed  for  a  moment  by  the 
picture  of  the  sanctuary  before  him. 

The  walls  were  hung  with  gray  tapestry,  covered  with 
violet  flowers.  A  small  ebony  chest,  an  antique  mirror,  a 
huge  old-fashioned  armchair,  also  made  of  ebony,  and  covered 
with  tapestry  ;  another  chair  beside  the  spindle-legged  table, 


THE  MARANAS.  247 

a  pretty  carpet  on  the  floor — that  was  all.  But  there  were 
flowers  on  the  table  beside  some  embroidery  work,  and  at  the 
other  end  of  the  room  stood  the  little  narrow  bed  on  which 
Juana  dreamed  ;  three  pictures  hung  on  the  wall  above  it, 
and  at  the  head  stood  a  crucifix  above  a  little  holy  water 
stoup,  and  a  prayer  framed  and  illuminated  in  gold.  The 
room  was  full  of  the  faint  perfume  of  the  flowers,  of  the  soft 
light  of  the  tapers ;  it  all  seemed  so  quiet,  pure,  and  sacred. 
The  subtle  charm  of  Juana's  dreamy  fancies,  nay  of  Juana 
herself,  seemed  to  pervade  everything  ;  her  soul  was  revealed 
by  her  surroundings ;  the  pearl  lay  there  in  its  shell. 

Juana,  clad  in  white,  with  no  ornament  save  her  own  love- 
liness, letting  fall  her  rosary  to  call  on  the  name  of  Love, 
would  have  inspired  even  Montefiore  with  reverence'  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  night  about  them  and  the  silence,  if  Juana 
had  welcomed  love  less  eagerly,  if  the  little  white  bed  had  not 
displayed  the  turned-down  coverlet — the  pillow,  confidante 
of  innumerable  vague  longings.  Montefiore  stood  there  for 
long,  intoxicated  by  joy  hitherto  unknown  ;  such  joy  as  Satan, 
it  may  be,  would  know  at  a  glimpse  of  paradise  if  the  cloud- 
veil  that  envelops  heaven  was  rent  away  for  a  moment. 

ill  loved  you  the  first  moment  that  I  saw  you,"  he  said, 
speaking  pure  Tuscan  in  the  tones  of  his  musical  Italian  voice. 
li  In  you  my  soul  and  my  life  are  set ;  if  you  so  will  it,  they 
shall  be  yours  forever." 

To  Juana  listening,  the  air  she  breathed  seemed  to  vibrate 
with  the  words  grown  magical  upon  her  lover's  tongue. 

'f.  Poor  little  girl !  how  have  you  breathed  the  atmosphere 
of  this  gloomy  place  so  long,  and  lived  ?  You,meant  to  reign 
like  a  queen  in  the  world,  to  dwell  in  the  palace  of  a  prince, 
to  pass  from  festival  to  festival,  to  feel  in  your  own  heart  the 
joys  that  you  create,  to  see  the  World  at  your  feet,  to  make 
the  fairest  splendors  pale  before  the  glorious  beauty  that  shall 
never  be  rivaled— you  have  lived  here  in  seclusion  with  this 
old  tradesman  and  his  wife  !  " 


248  THE   MARANAS. 

There  was  a  purpose  in  his  exclamation  ;  he  wanted  to  find 
out  whether  or  no  Juana  had  ever  had  a  lover. 

"Yes,"  she  answered.  "But  who  can  have  told  you  my 
inmost  thoughts  ?  For  these  twelve  months  past  I  have  been 
weary  to  death  of  it.  Yes,  I  would  die  rather  than  stay  any 
longer  in  this  house.  Do  you  see  this  embroidery  ?  I  have 
set  countless  dreadful  thoughts  into  every  stitch  of  it.  How 
often  I  have  longed  to  run  away  and  fling  myself  into  the  sea  \ 

Do    you    ask    why?     I    have    forgotten    already Childish 

troubles,  but  very  keenly  felt  in  spite  of  their  childishness 

Often  at  night  when  I  kissed  my  mother,  I  have  given  her 
such  a  kiss  as  one  gives  for  a  last  farewell,  saying  in  my  heart, 
I  will  kill  myself  to-morrow.  After  all,  I  did  not  die.  Sui- 
cides go  to  hell,  and  I  was  so  much  afraid  of  that,  that  I  made 
up  my  mind  to  endure  my  life,  to  get  up  and  go  to  bed,  and 
do  the  same  things  hour  after  hour  of  every  day.  My  life 
was  not  irksome,  it  was  painful.  And  yet,  my  father  and 
mother  worship  me.  Oh  !  I  am  wicked  !  indeed,  I  tell  my 
confessor  so." 

"  Then  have  you  always  lived  here  without  amusements, 
without  pleasures?" 

"  Oh  !  I  have  not  always  felt  like  this.  Until  I  was  fifteen 
years  old,  I  enjoyed  seeing  the  festivals  of  the  Church  ;  I 
loved  the  singing  and  the  music.  I  was  so  happy,  because  I 
felt  that,  like  the  angels,  I  was  sinless,  so  glad  that  I  might 
take  the  sacrament  every  week ;  in  short,  I  loved  God  then. 
But  in  these  three  years  I  have  changed  utterly,  day  by  day. 
It  began  when  I  wanted  flowers  here  in  the  house,  and  they 

gave  me  very  beautiful  ones;  then  I  wanted But  now  I 

want  nothing  any  longer,"  she  added,  after  a  pause,  and  she 
smiled  at  Montefiore. 

"  Did  you  not  tell  me  just  now  in  your  letter  that  you  would 
love  me  for  ever  ?  " 

"Yes,  my  Juana,"  murmured  Montefiore.  He  put  his 
arm  round  the  waist  of  this  adorable  girl  and  pressed  her 


THE  MARANAS.  249 

closely  to  his  heart.  "  Yes.  But  let  me  speak  to  you  as  you 
pray  to  God.  Are  you  not  fairer  than  Our  Lady  in  heaven  ? 
Hear  me,"  and  he  set  a  kiss  in  her  hair,  "  for  me  that  fore- 
head of  yours  is  the  fairest  altar  on  earth ;  I  swear  to  worship 
you,  my  idol,  to  pour  out  all  the  wealth  of  the  world  upon 
you.  My  carriages  are  yours,  my  palace  in  Milan  is  yours, 
yours  all  the  jewels  and  the  diamonds,  the  heirlooms  of  my 
ancient  house ;  new  ornaments  and  dresses  every  day,  and  all 
the  countless  pleasures  and  delights  of  the  world." 

"  Yes,"  she  said;  "  I  should  like  it  all  very  much;  but  in 
my  soul  I  feel  that  I  should  love  my  dear  husband  more  than 
all  things  else  in  the  world." 

Mio  caro  sposo  /  Italian  was  Juana's  native  speech,  and  it 
is  impossible  to  put  into  two  words  of  another  language  the 
wonderful  tenderness,  the  winning  grace  with  which  that  brief 
delicious  phrase  is  invested  by  the  accents  of  an  Italian 
tongue.  "  I  shall  find,"  she  said,  and  the  purity  of  a  seraph 
shone  in  her  eyes,  "  I  shall  find  my  beloved  religion  again  in 

him.     His  and  God's,  God's  and  his! But  you  are  he, 

are  you  not?  "  she  cried,  after  a  pause.  "  Surely,  surely  you 
are  he  !  Ah  !  come  and  see  the  picture  that  my  father  brought 
me  from  Italy^" 

She  took  up  a  candle,  beckoned  to  Montefiore,  and  showed 
him  a  picture  that  hung  at  the  foot  of  the  bed — Saint  Michael 
trampling  Satan  under  foot. 

"  Look  !  "  she  cried,  "has  he  not  your  eyes?  That  made 
me  think,  as  soon  as  I  saw  you  in  the  street,  that  in  the  meet- 
ing I  saw  the  finger  of  heaven.  So  often  I  have  lain  awake 
in  the  morning  before  my  mother  came  to  call  me  to  prayer, 
thinking  about  that  picture,  looking  at  the  angel,  until  at  last 
I  came  to  think  that  he  was  my  husband.  Mon  Dieu  /  I  am 
talking  as  I  think  to  myself.  What  wild  nonsense  it  must 
seem  to  you  !  but  if  you  only  knew  how  a  poor  recluse  longs  to 
pour  out  the  thoughts  that  oppress  her!  I  used  to  talk  to 
these  flowers  and  the  woven  garlands  on  the  tapestry  when  I 

I 


250  THE   MARANAS. 

was  alone  ;  they  understood  me  better,  I  think,  than  my  father 
and  mother — always  so  serious " 

"  Juana,"  said  Montefiore,  as  he  took  her  hands  and  kissed 
them,  passion  shone  in  his  eyes  and  overflowed  in  his  gestures 
and  in  the  sound  of  his  voice,  "  talk  to  me  as  if  I  were  your 
husband,  talk  to  me  as  you  talk  to  yourself.  I  have  suffered 
all  that  you  have  suffered.  Few  words  will  be  needed,  when 
we  talk  together,  to  bring  back  the  whole  past  of  either  life 
before  we  met ;  but  there  are  not  words  enough  in  language  to 
tell  of  the  bliss  that  lies  before  us  Lay  your  hand  on  my 
heart.  Do  you  feel  how  it  beats?  Let  us  vow,  before  God, 
who  sees  and  hears  us,  to  be  faithful  to  each  other  all  our  lives. 
Stay,  take  this  ring.     Give  me  yours." 

"  Give  away  my  ring?  "  she  cried,  startled. 

"Why  not?"  asked  Montefiore,  dismayed  by  so  much 
simplicity. 

"Why,  it  came  to  me  from  our  Holy  Father  the  Pope. 
When  I  was  a  little  girl  a  beautiful  lady  set  it  on  my  finger; 
she  took  care  of  me,  and  brought  me  here,  and  she  told  me  to 
keep  it  always." 

"Then  you  do  not  love  me,  Juana?  " 

"Ah  !  here  it  is,"  she  cried.  "Are  you  not  more  myself 
than  I?" 

She  held  out  the  ring,  trembling  as  she  did  so,  keeping  her 
fingers  tightly  clasped  upon  it  as  she  looked  at  Montefiore  with 
clear,  questioning  eyes.  That  ring  meant  her  whole  self:  she 
gave  it  to  him. 

"Oh  !  my  Juana  !  "  said  Montefiore  as  he  held  her  closely 
in  his  arms,  "  only  a  monster  could  be  false  to  you.  I  will 
love  you  for  ever." 

Juana  grew  dreamy.  Montefiore.  thinking  within  himself 
that  in  his  first  interview,  he  must  not  run  the  slightest  risk  of 
startling  a  girl  so  innocent,  whose  imprudence  sprang  rather 
from  virtue  than  from  desire,  was  fain  to  content  himself  with 
thinking  of  the  future  of  her  beauty  now  that  he  had  known 


THE   MARANAS.  251 

its  power,  ana  of  the  innocent  marriage  of  the  ring,  that  most 
sublime  of  betrothals,  the  simplest  and  most  binding  of  all 
ceremonies,  the  betrothal  of  the  heart. 

For  the  rest  of  the  night,  and  all  day  long  on  the  morrow 
Juana's  imagination  would  surely  become  the  accomplice  of 
his  desires.  So  he  put  constraint  upon  himself,  and  tried  to 
be  as  respectful  as  he  was  tender.  With  these  thoughts  present 
in  his  mind,  prompted  by  his  passion,  and  yet  more  by  the 
desires  that  Juana  inspired  in  him,  his  words  were  insinuating 
and  fervent.  He  led  the  innocent  child  to  plan  out  the  new 
life  before  them,  painted  the  world  for  her  in  the  most  glow- 
ing colors,  dwelt  on  the  household  details  that  possess  such 
a  delightful  interest  for  young  girls,  and  made  with  her  the 
compacts  over  which  lovers  dispute,  the  agreements  that  give 
rights  and  reality  to  love.  Then,  when  they  had  decided  the 
hour  for  their  nightly  tryst,  he  went,  leaving  a  happy  but  a 
changed  Juana.  The  simple  and  innocent  Juana  no  longer 
existed,  already  there  was  more  passion  than  a  girl  should 
reveal  in  the  last  glance  that  she  gave  him,  in  the  charming 
way  that  she  held  up  her  forehead  for  the  touch  of  her  lover's 
lips.  It  was  all  the  result  of  solitude  and  irksome  tasks  upon 
this  nature  ;  if  she  was  to  be  prudent  and  virtuous,  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  world  should  either  have  come  to  her  gradually 
or  have  been  hidden  from  her  for  ever. 

"  How  slowly  the  day  will  go  to-morrow!  "  she  said,  as 
another  kiss,  still  respectfully  given,  was  pressed  upon  her 
forehead. 

"  But  you  will  sit  in  the  dining-room,  will  you  not?  and 
raise  your  voice  a  little  when  you  talk,  so  that  I  may  hear  you, 
and  the  sound  may  fill  my  heart." 

Montefiore,  beginning  to  understand  the  life  that  Juana  led, 
was  but  the  better  pleased  that  he  had  managed  to  restrain  his 
desires  that  he  might  the  better  secure  his  end.  He  returned 
to  his  room  without  mishap. 

Ten   days  went  by,  and   nothing  occurred   to  disturb  the 


252  THE  MAR  ANAS. 

peace  and  quiet  of  the  house.  Montefiore,  with  the  persua- 
sive manners  of  an  Italian,  had  gained  the  good  graces  of  old 
Perez  and  Dona  Lagounia  ;  indeed,  he  was  popular  with  the 
whole  household — with  the  apprentice  and  the  maidservant ; 
but  in  spite  of  the  confidence  that  he  had  succeeded  in  inspir- 
ing in  them,  he  never  attempted  to  take  advantage  of  it  to 
ask  to  see  Juana,  or  to  open  the  door  of  that  little  sealed 
paradise.  The  Italian  girl,  in  her  longing  to  see  her  lover,  had 
often  besought  him  to  do  this,  but  from  motives  of  prudence 
he  had  always  refused.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  used  the 
character  he  had  gained  and  all  his  skill  to  lull  the  suspicions 
of  the  old  couple  ;  he  had  accustomed  them  to  his  habit  of 
never  rising  till  mid-day,  soldier  as  he  was.  The  captain  gave 
out  that  his  health  was  bad.  So  the  two  lovers  only  Jived 
at  night  when  all  the  household  was  asleep. 

If  Montefiore  had  not  been  a  libertine  to  whom  a  long 
experience  of  pleasure  had  given  presence  of  mind  under  all 
conditions,  they  would  have  been  lost  half  a  score  of  times  in 
those  ten  days.  A  young  lover,  with  the  single-heartedness 
of  first  love,  would  have  been  tempted  in  his  rapture  into 
imprudences  that  were  very  hard  to  resist ;  but  the  Italian  was 
proof  even  against  Juana,  against  her  pouting  lips,  her  wild 
spirits,  against  a  Juana  who  wound  the  long  plaits  of  her  hair 
about  his  throat  to  keep  him  by  her  side.  The  keenest 
observer  would  have  been  sorely  puzzled  to  detect  those  mid- 
night meetings.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  the  Italian, 
sure  of  his  ultimate  success,  enjoyed  prolonging  the  ineffable 
pleasure  of  this  intrigue  in  which  he  made  progress  step  by 
step,  in  fanning  the  flame  that  gradually  waxed  hotter,  till 
everything  must  yield  to  it  at  last. 

On  the  eleventh  day,  as  they  sat  at  dinner,  he  deemed  it 
expedient  to  confide  to  Perez  (under  the  seal  of  secrecy)  the 
history  of  the  disgrace  into  which  he  had  fallen  among  his 
family.      It  was  a  mesalliance,  he  said. 

There  was  something  revolting  in  this  lie,  told  as  a  confi- 


THE  MAR  ANAS.  253 

dence,  while  that  midnight  drama  was  in  pi  ogress  beneath 
the  old  man's  roof.  Montefiore,  an  experienced  actor,  was 
leading  up  to  a  catastrophe  planned  by  himself;  and,  like 
an  artist  who  loves  his  art,  he  enjoyed  the  thought  of  it. 
He  meant  very  shortly  to  take  leave  of  the  house  and  of  his 
lady-love  without  regret.  And  when  Juana,  risking  her  life 
it  might  be  to  ask  the  question,  should  inquire  of  Perez 
what  had  become  of  their  guest,  Perez  would  tell  her,  all 
unwittingly,  that  "  the  Marchese  di  Montefiore  has  been  recon- 
ciled with  his  family ;  they  have  consented  to  receive  his  wife, 
and  he  has  taken  her  to  them." 

And  Juana? The  Italian  never  inquired  of  himself  what 

would  become  of  her;  he  had  had  ample  opportunity  of 
knowing  her  nobleness,  her  innocence,  and  her  goodness,  and 
felt  sure  that  Juana  would  keep  silence. 

He  obtained  a  message  to  carry  for  some  general  or  other. 
Three  days  afterwards,  on  the  night  before  he  must  start, 
Montefiore  went  straight  to  Juana's  room  instead  of  going  first 
to  his  own.  The  same  instinct  that  bids  the  tiger  leave  no 
morsel  of  his  prey  prompted  the  Italian  to  lengthen  the  night 
of  farewells.  Juana,  the  true  daughter  of  two  southern  lands, 
with  the  passion  of  Spain  and  of  Italy  in  her  heart,  was  enrap- 
tured by  the  boldness  that  brought  her  lover  to  her  and  re- 
vealed the  ardor  of  his  love.  To  know  the  delicious  torment 
of  an  illicit  passion  under  the  sanction  of  marriage,  to  conceal 
her  husband  behind  the  bed-curtains,  half  deceiving  the 
adopted  father  and  mother,  to  whom  she  could  say  in  case  of 
discovery,  "I  am  the  Marchesa  di  Montefiore,"  was  not  this 
a  festival  for  the  young  and  romantic  girl  who,  for  three  years 
past,  had  dreamed  of  love — love  always  beset  with  perils  ? 
The  curtains  of  the  door  fell,  drawing  about  their  madness 
and  happiness  a  veil  which  it  is  useless  to  raise. 

It  was  nearly  nine  o'clock,  the  merchant  and  his  wife  were 
reading  the  evening  prayer,  when  suddenly  the  sound  of  a 
carriage,  drawn  by  several  horses,  came  from  the  narrow  street 


254  THE   MARANAS. 

without.  Some  one  knocked  hastily  and  loudly  at  the  dooi 
of  the  shop.  The  servant  ran  to  open  it,  and  in  a  moment  a 
woman  sprang  into  the  quaint  old  room — a  woman  magnifi- 
cently dressed,  though  her  traveling  carriage  was  besplashed 
by  the  mire  of  many  roads,  for  she  had  crossed  Italy  and 
France  and  Spain.  It  was  La  Marana !  La  Marana,  in  spite 
of  her  thirty-six  years  and  her  riotous  life,  in  the  full  pride  of 
her  beltafolgorante,  to  record  the  superb  epithet  invented  for 
her  in  Milan  by  her  enraptured  adorers.  La  Marana,  the 
openly  avowed  mistress  of  a  king,  had  left  Naples  and  its 
festivals  and  sunny  skies,  at  the  very  height  and  summit  of 
her  strange  career — had  left  gold  and  madrigals  and  silks  and 
perfumes,  and  her  royal  lover,  when  she  learned  from  him 
what  was  passing  in  Spain,  and  how  that  Taragona  was  besieged. 

"Taragona!  "  she  cried,  "and  before  the  city  is  taken  !  I 
must  be  in  Taragona  in  ten  days!  "  And  without  another 
thought  for  courts  or  crowned  heads,  she  had  reached  Tara- 
gona, provided  with  a  passport  that  gave  her  something  like 
the  powers  of  an  empress,  and  with  gold  that  enabled  her  to 
cross  the  French  empire  with  the  speed  and  splendor  of  a 
rocket.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  distance  for  a  mother ;  she 
who  is  a  mother,  indeed,  sees  her  child,  and  knows  by  instinct 
how  it  fares  though  they  are  as  far  apart  as  the  poles. 

"My  daughter  !   my  daughter  !"  cried  La  Marana. 

At  that  cry,  at  this  swift  invasion  of  their  house,  and  appa- 
rition of  a  queen  traveling  incognito,  Perez  and  his  wife  let 
the  prayer-book  fall ;  that  voice  rang  in  their  ears  like  a  thun- 
der-clap, and  La  Marana's  eyes  flashed  lightnings. 

"She  is  in  there,"  the  merchant  answered  quietly,  after  a 
brief  pause,  during  which  they  recovered  from  the  shock  of 
surprise  caused  by  La  Marana's  sudden  appearance,  and  by 
her  look  and  tone.  "  She  is  in  there,"  he  said  again,  indi- 
cating the  little  hiding-place. 

"  Yes,  but  has  she  not  been  ill?     Is  she  quite " 

"  Perfectly  well,"  said  Dona  Lagounia. 


THE   MAR  ANAS.  255 

"  Oh,  God  !  '■  cried  La  Marana,  "  plunge  me  now  in  hell 
for  all  eternity,  if  it  be  Thy  pleasure,"  and  she  sank  down 
utterly  exhausted  into  a  chair. 

The  flush  that  anxiety  had  brought  to  her  face  faded  sud- 
denly ;  her  cheeks  grew  white  ;  she  who  had  borne  up  bravely 
under  the  strain,  had  no  strength  left  when  it  was  over.  The 
joy  was  tpo  intolerable,  a  joy  more  intense  than  her  previous 
distress,  for  she  was  still  vibrating  with  dread,  when  bliss  keen 
as  anguish  came  upon  her. 

"  But  how  have  you  done  !  "  she  asked.  "  Taragona  was 
taken  by  assault." 

"Yes,"  answered  Perez.  "  But  when  you  saw  that  I  was 
alive,  how  could  you  ask  such  a  question  ?  How  should  any 
one  reach  Juana  but  over  my  dead  body?" 

The  courtesan  grasped  Perez'  horny  hand  on  receiving  this 
answer  ;  tears  gathered  in  her  eyes  and  fell  upon  his  fingers 
as  she  kissed  them — the  costliest  of  all  things  under  the  sun 
for  her,  who  never  wept. 

"Brave  Perez!"  she  said  at  last;  "but  surely  there  are 
soldiers  billeted  upon  you,  are  there  not  ?  " 

"Only  one,"  answered  the  Spaniard.  "Luckily,  we  have 
one  of  the  most  honorable  of  men,  an  Italian  by  nationality, 
a  Spaniard  by  birth,  a  hater  of  Bonaparte,  a  married  man,  a 
steady  character.  He  rises  late,  and  goes  to  bed  early.  He 
is  in  bad  health,  too,  just  now." 

"An  Italian!     What  is  his  name  ?  " 

"  Captain  Montefiore,  he " 

"  Why,  he  is  not  the  Marchese  di  Montefiore,  is  he  ?  " 

"Yes,  senora,  the  very  same." 

"  Has  he  seen  Juana  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Dona  Lagounia. 

"You  are  mistaken,  wife,"  said  Perez.  "The  Marquis 
must  have  seen  Juana  once,  only  for  a  moment,  it  is  true,  but 
I  think  he  must  have  seen  her  that  day  when  she  came  in  at 
supper-time." 


256  THE    MARA N AS. 

"  Ah  !  I  should  like  to  see  ray  daughter." 

"  Nothing  is  easier,"  said  Perez.  "  She  is  asleep.  Though 
if  she  has  left  the  key  in  the  lock,  we  shall  have  to  wake 
her." 

As  the  merchant  rose  to  take  down  the  duplicate  key  from 
its  place,  he  happened  to  glance  up  through  the  tall  window. 
The  light  from  the  large  round  pane-opening  of  Juana's  cell 
fell  upon  the  dark  wall  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  yard, 
tracing  a  gleaming  circle  there,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  lighted 
space  he  saw  two  shadowy  figures  such  as  no  sculptor  till  the 
time  of  the  gifted  Canova  could  have  dreamed  of.  The 
Spaniard  turned  to  the  room  again. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  he  said  to  La  Marana,  "  where  we  have 
put  the  key " 

"  You  look  very  pale  !  M  she  exclaimed. 

"I  will  soon  tell  you  why,"  he  answered,  as  he  sprang 
towards  his  dagger,  caught  it  up,  and  beat  violently  on  the 
door  in  the  paneling.  "Open  the  door!"  he  shouted. 
"  Juana  !   open  the  door !  " 

There  was  an  appalling  despair  in  his  tones  that  struck 
terror  into  the  two  women  who  heard  him. 

Juana  did  not  open,  because  there  was  some  delay  in  hiding 
Montefiore.  She  knew  nothing  of  what  had  passed  in  the 
room  without.  The  tapestry  hangings  on  either  side  of  the 
door  deadened  all  sounds. 

"  Madame,"  said  Perez,  turning  to  La  Marana,  "  I  told  you 
just  now  that  I  did  not  know  where  the  key  was.  That  was 
a  lie.  Here  it  is,"  and  he  took  it  from  the  sideboard,  "  but 
it  is  useless.  Juana's  key  is  in  the  lock,  and  her  door  is  bar- 
ricaded. We  are  deceived,  wife  !  There  is  a  man  in  Juana's 
room." 

"  By  my  hopes  of  salvation,  the  thing  is  impossible  !  " 
said  Dona  Lagounia. 

"Do  not  perjure  yourself,  Dona  Lagounia.  Our  honor  is 
slain  ;  and  she**  (he  turned  to  La  Marana,  who  had  risen  to  her 


THE  MAR  AN  AS.  257 

feet,  and  stood  motionless  as  if  thunderstruck  by  his  words), 
"  she  may  well  scorn  us.  She  saved  our  lives,  our  fortune,  and 
our  honor,  and  we  have  barely  guarded  her  money  for  her — 
Juana,  open  the  door ! ' '  he  shouted,  ' '  or  I  will  break  it  down  !  ' ' 

The  whole  house  rang  with  the  cry ;  his  voice  grew  louder 
and  angrier;  but  he  was  cool  and  self-possessed.  He  held 
Montefidre's  life  in  his  hands,  in  another  moment  he  would 
wash  away  his  remorse  in  every  drop  of  the  Italian's  blood. 

"  Go  out  !  go  out  !  go  out  !  all  of  you  !  "  cried  La  Marana, 
and  springing  for  the  dagger  like  a  tigress,  she  snatched  it 
from  the  hand  of  the  astonished  Perez.  "Go  out  of  this 
room,  Perez,"  she  went  on,  speaking  quite  quietly  now.  "  Go 
out,  you  and  your  wife,  and  the  maid  and  the  apprentice. 
There  will  be  a  murder  here  directly,  and  you  might  all  be 
shot  down  by  the  French  for  it.  Do  not  you  mix  yourself  up 
in  it,  it  is  my  affair  entirely.  When  my  daughter  and  I  meet, 
God  alone  should  be  present.  As  for  the  man,  he  is  mine. 
The  whole  world  should  not  snatch  him  out  of  my  hands. 
There,  there,  go !  I  forgive  you.  I  see  it  all.  The  girl  is  a 
Marana.  My  blood  flows  in  her  veins,  and  you,  your  religion, 
and  your  honor  have  been  powerless  against  it." 

Her  groan  was  dreadful  to  hear.  She  turned  dry  eyes  upon 
them.  She  had  lost  everything,  but  she  was  accustomed  to 
suffering ;  she  was  a  courtesan.  The  door  opened.  La 
Marana  henceforth  heeded  nothing  else,  and  Perez,  making  a 
sign  to  his  wife,  could  remain  at  his  post.  The  old  Spaniard, 
implacable  where  honor  was  concerned,  determined  to  assist 
the  wronged  mother's  vengeance.  Juana,  in  her  white  drap- 
eries, stood  quietly  there  in  her  room  in  the  soft  lamplight. 
"  What  do  you  want  with  me?  "   she  asked. 

In  spite  of  herself,  a  light  shudder  ran  through  La  Marana. 

"Perez,"  she  asked,  "is  there  any  other  way  out  of  this 
closet?" 

Perez  shook  his  head ;  and  on  that  the  courtesan  went  into 
the  room. 
17 


258  THE   MARANAS. 

"  Juana,"  she  said,  "I  am  your  mother,  your  judge — you 
have  put  yourself  in  the  one  situation  in  which  I  can  reveal 
myself  to  you.  You  have  come  to  my  level,  you  whom  I  had 
thought  to  raise  to  heaven.  Oh !  you  have  fallen  very 
low ! You  have  a  lover  in  your  room." 

"  Madame,  no  one  but  my  husband  should  or  could  be 
there,"  she  answered.      "  I  am  the  Marchesa  di  Montefiore." 

"  Then  are  there  two  of  them  ?  "  asked  old  Perez  sternly. 
"  He  told  me  that  he  was  married." 

"  Montefiore  !  my  love  !  "  cried  the  girl,  rending  the  cur- 
tains, and  discovering  the  officer;  "come  forward,  these 
people  are  slandering  you." 

The  Italian's  face  was  haggard  and  pale;  he  saw  the 
dagger  in  La  Marana's  hand,  and  he  knew  La  Marana.  At 
one  bound  he  sprang  out  of  the  chamber,  and  with  a  voice  of 
thunder  shouted,  "Help!  help!  murder!  they  are  killing  a 
Frenchman  !  Soldiers  of  the  Sixth  of  the  line,  run  for  Cap- 
tain Diard  ! Help !  " 

Perez  had  secured  the  Marquis,  and  was  about  to  gag  him 
by  putting  his  large  hand  over  the  soldier's  mouth,  when  the 
courtesan  stopped  him. 

"  Hold  him  fast,"  she  said,  "  but  let  him  call.  Throw  open 
the  doors,  and  leave  them  open  ;  and  now  go  out,  all  of  you, 
I  tell  you  !  As  for  you,"  she  continued,  addressing  Monte- 
fiore, "  shout,  and    call  for  help As  soon  as  there  is  a 

sound  of  your  men's  footsteps,  this  blade  will  be  in  your 
heart Are  you  married?     Answer  me." 

Montefiore,  lying  across  the  threshold  of  the  door,  two 
paces  from  Juana,  heard  nothing,  and  saw  nothing,  for  the 
blinding  gleam  of  the  dagger  blade. 

"  Then  he  meant  to  deceive  me;"  the  words  came  slowly 
from  Juana.      "  He  told  me  that  he  was  free." 

"  He  told  me  that  he  was  a  married  man,"  said  Perez,  in 
the  same  stern  tones  as  before. 

"  Holy  Virgin  !  "  exclaimed  Dona  Lagounia.     La  Marana 


THE  MAKANAS.  259 

stooped  to  mutter  in  the  ear  of  the  Marquis,  "Answer  me, 
will  you,  soul  of  mud  ?  " 

"Your  daughter "  Montefiore  began. 

"The  daughter  I  once  had  is  dead,  or  she  soon  will  be," 
said  La  Marana.  "I  have  no  daughter  now.  Do  not  use 
that  word  again.     Answer  me,  are  you  married  ?  " 

"No,  madame,"  Montefiore  said  at  last  (he  wished  to  gain 
time)  ;   "I  mean  to  marry  your  daughter." 

"  My  noble  Montefiore  !  "  cried  Juana,  with  a  deep  breath. 

"  Then  what  made  you  fly  and  call  for  help  !  "  demanded 
Perez. 

Terrible  perspicacity ! 

Juana  said  nothing,  but  she  wrung  her  hands,  went  over  to 
her  armchair,  and  sat  down.  Even  at  that  moment  there  was 
an  uproar  in  the  street,  and  in  the  deep  silence  that  fell  upon 
the  parlor  it  was  sufficiently  easy  to  catch  the  sounds.  A 
private  soldier  of  the  Sixth,  who  had  chanced  to  pass  along 
the  street  when  Montefiore  cried  out  for  help,  had  gone  to 
call  up  Diard.  Luckily,  the  quartermaster  was  in  his  lodging, 
and  came  at  once  with  several  comrades. 

"Why  did  I  fly?"  repeated  Montefiore,  who  heard  the 
sound  of  his  friend's  voice.  "Because  I  had  told  you  the 
truth.     Diard  !   Diard  !  "  he  shrieked  aloud. 

But  at  a  word  from  Perez,  who  meant  that  all  in  his  house 
should  share  in  the  murder,  the  apprentice  made  the  door  fast, 
and  the  men  were  obliged  to  force  it  open.  La  Marana,  there- 
fore, could  stab  the  guilty  creature  at  her  feet  before  they 
made  an  entrance;  but  her  hand  shook  with  pent-up  wrath, 
and  the  blade  slipped  aside  upon  Montefiore's  epaulette.  Yet 
so  heavy  had  been  the  blow,  that  the  Italian  rolled  over 
almost  at  Juana's  feet.  The  girl  did  not  see  him,  but  La 
Marana  sprang  upon  her  prey,  and,  lest  she  should  fail  this 
time,  she  held  his  throat  in  an  iron  grasp,  and  pointed  the 
dagger  at  his  heart. 

"  I  am  free  !  "  he  gasped.     "  I  will  marry  her  !     I  swear  it 


260  THE  MARANAS. 

by  God  !  by  my  mother !  by  all  that  is  most  sacred  in  this 
world.  I  am  not  married  !  I  will  marry  her !  Upon  my 
word  of  honor,  I  will!  "  and  he  set  his  teeth  in  the  cour- 
tesan's arm. 

"That  is  enough,  mother."  said  Juana;  "kill  him!  I 
would  not  have  such  a  coward  for  my  husband  if  he  were  ten 
times  more  beautiful." 

"Ah  !  that  is  my  daughter  !  "  cried  La  Marana. 

"What  is  going  on  here?"  asked  the  quartermaster,  look- 
ing about  him. 

"  This,"  shouted  Montefiore;  "  they  are  murdering  me  on 
that  girl's  account ;  she  says  that  I  am  her  lover ;  she  trapped 
me,  and  now  they  want  to  force  me  to  marry  her  against  my 
will " 

"  Against  your  will  ?  "  cried  Diard,  struck  with  the  sublime 
beauty  that  indignation,  scorn,  and  hate  had  lent  to  Juana's 
face,  already  so  fair.  "  You  are  very  hard  to  please  !  If  she 
must  have  a  husband,  here  am  I.     Put  up  your  dagger." 

La  Marana  grasped  the  Italian,  pulled  him  to  his  feet, 
brought  him  to  the  bedside,  and  said  in  his  ear — 

"If  I  spare  your  life,  you  may  thank  that  last  speech  of 
yours  for  it.  But  keep  it  in  mind.  If  you  say  a  word  against 
my  daughter,  we  shall  see  each  other  again.  What  will  her 
dowry  amount  to?"  she  asked  of  Perez. 

"  Two  hundred  thousand  piastres  down " 

"That  will  not  be  all,  monsieur,"  said  the  courtesan,  ad- 
dressing Diard.  "  Who  are  you?  You  can  go,"  she  added, 
turning  to  Montefiore. 

But  when  the  Marquis  heard  mention  of  two  hundred  thou- 
sand piastres  down,  he  came  forward,  saying,  "I  am  really 
quite  free " 

"You  are  really  quite  free  to  go,"  said  La  Marana,  and 
the  Italian  went. 

"Alas!  monsieur,"  the  girl  spoke,  addressing  Diard;  "I 
thank  you,   and  I  admire   you.     But  my  bridegroom  is   in 


THE  MARA  WAS.  261 

heaven  ;  I  shall  be  the  bride  of  Christ.  To-morrow  I  shall 
enter  the  convent  of " 

"  Oh,  hush  !  hush  !  Juana,  my  Juana  !  "  cried  her  mother, 
holding  the  girl  tightly  in  her  arms.  Then  she  whispered, 
"  You  must  take  another  bridegroom." 

Juana  turned  pale. 

"  Who  are  you,  monsieur?  "  asked  the  mother  of  the  Pro- 
vencal. 

"  I  am  nothing  as  yet  but  a  quartermaster  in  the  Sixth 
Regiment  of  the  line,"  said  he  ;  "  but  for  such  a  wife,  a  man 
would  feel  that  it  lay  in  him  to  be  a  marshal  of  France  some 
day.  My  name  is  Pierre-Francois  Diard.  My  father  was  a 
guild  magistrate,  so  I  am  not  a " 

"  Eh  !  you  are  an  honest  man,  are  you  not?"  cried  La 
Marana.  "  If  the  Signorina  Juana  dei  Mancini  cares  for  you, 
you  may  both  be  happy.  Juana,"  she  went  on  gravely, 
"when  you  are  the  wife  of  a  good  and  worthy  man,  remem- 
ber that  you  will  be  a  mother.     I  have  sworn  that  you  shall 

set  a  kiss  upon   your  child's   forehead  without   a  blush 

(Here  her  tone  changed  somewhat.)  I  have  sworn  that  you 
shall  be  a  virtuous  wife.  So  in  this  life,  though  many  trou- 
bles await  you,  whatever  happens  to  you,  be  a  chaste  and 
faithful  wife  to  your  husband  ;  sacrifice  everything  to  him  ; 

he  will  be  the  father  of  your  children A  father  to  your 

children  ! Stay,  between    you  and  a  lover  your  mother 

always  will  stand  ;  I  shall  be  your  mother  only  when  danger 

threatens Do  you  see  Perez's  dagger?     That  is  part  of 

your  dower,"  and  she  flung  the  weapon  down  on  the  bed. 
'.?  There  I  leave  it  as  a  guarantee  of  your  honor,  so  long  as  I 
have  eyes  to  see  and  hands  that  can  strike  a  blow.  Fare-, 
well,"  she  said,  keeping  back  the  tears;  "  may  heaven  direct 
that  we  never  meet  again,"  and  at  that  her  tears  flowed 
fast. 

<l  Poor  child  !  you  have  been  very  happy  in  this  little  cell, 
happier  than  you  know.     Act  in  such  a  way  that  she  may 


262  THE  MARANAS. 

never  look  back  on  it  with  regret,"  La  Marana  added,  look- 
ing at  her  future  son-in-law. 

The  story,  which  has  been  given  simply  by  way  of  intro- 
duction, is  not  by  any  means  the  subject  of  the  following- 
study  \  it  has  been  told  to  explain,  in  the  first  place,  how 
Montefiore  and  Diard  became  acquainted,  how  Captain  Diard 
came  to  marry  Juana  dei  Mancini,  and  to  make  known  what 
passions  filled  Mme.  Diard's  heart,  what  blood  flowed  in  her 
veins. 

By  the  time  that  the  quartermaster  had  been  through  the 
slow  and  tedious  formalities  indispensable  for  a  French  soldier 
who  is  obtaining  leave  to  marry,  he  had  fallen  passionately  in 
love  with  Juana  dei  Mancini,  and  Juana  dei  Mancini  had  had 
time  to  reflect  on  her  fate.  An  appalling  fate  !  Juana,  who 
neither  loved  nor  esteemed  this  Diard,  was  none  the  less 
bound  to  him  by  a  promise,  a  rash  promise  no  doubt,  but 
there  had  been  no  help  for  it.  The  Provencal  was  neither 
handsome  nor  well  made.  His  manners  were  totally  lacking 
in  distinction,  and  savored  of  the  camp,  of  his  provincial 
bringing  up  and  imperfect  education.  How  should  the  young 
girl  love  Diard?  With  her  perfect  elegance  and  grace,  her 
unconquerable  instinct  for  luxury  and  refinement,  her  natural 
inclinations  were  towards  the  higher  spheres  of  society ;  and 
she  could  not  bring  herself  to  feel  so  much  as  esteem  for  this 
Diard  who  was  to  marry  her,  and  precisely  for  that  very  reason. 

The  repugnance  was  very  natural.  Woman  is  a  sacred  and 
gracious  being,  almost  always  misunderstood ;  the  judgments 
passed  upon  her  are  almost  always  unjust,  because  she  is 
not  understood.  If  Juana  had  loved  Diard,  she  would  have 
esteemed  him.  Love  creates  a  new  self  within  a  woman  ;  the 
old  self  passes  away  with  the  dawn  of  love,  and  in  the  wed- 
ding-robe of  a  passion  that  shall  last  as  long  as  life  itself,  her 
life  is  invested  with  whiteness  and  purity.  After  this  new 
birth,  this  revival  of  modesty  and  virtue,  she  has  no  longer 


THE  MARANAS.  263 

a  past ;  it  is  utterly  forgotten  ;  she  turns  wholly  to  the  future 
that  she  may  learn  all  things  afresh.  In  this  sense,  the  words 
of  the  famous  line  that  a  modern  poet  has  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Marion  Delorme,  a  line,  moreover,  that  Corneille  might 
well  have  written,  are  steeped  in  truth — 

"And  Love  gives  back  my  maidenhood  to  me." 

Does  it  not  read  like  a  reminiscence  of  some  tragedy  of  Coi- 
neille's?  The  style  of  the  father  of  French  drama,  so  forceful, 
owing  so  little  to  epithet,  seems  to  be  revived  again  in  the 
words.  And  yet  the  writer,  the  poet  of  our  own  day,  has 
been  compelled  to  sacrifice  it  to  the  taste  of  a  public  only 
capable  of  appreciating  vaudevilles. 

So  Juana,  loveless,  was  still  the  same  Juana,  betrayed, 
humiliated,  brought  very  low.  How  should  this  Juana  respect 
a  man  who  could  take  her  thus?  With  the  high-minded 
purity  of  youth,  she  felt  the  force  of  a  distinction,  subtle  in 
appearance,  but  real  and  immutable,  a  binding  law  upon  the 
heart,  which  even  the  least  thoughtful  women  instinctively 
apply  to  all  their  sentiments.  Life  had  opened  out  before 
Juana,  and  the  prospect  saddened  her  inmost  soul. 

Often  she  looked  at  Perez  and  Dona  Lagounia,  her  eyes 
full  of  the  tears  she  was  too  proud  to  let  fall ;  they  under- 
stood the  bitter  thoughts  contained  in  those  tears,  but  they 
said  no  word.  Were  not  reproaches  useless?  And  why  should 
they  seek  to  comfort  her?  The  keener  the  sympathy,  the 
wider  the  pent-up  sorrow  would  spread. 

One  evening,  as  Juana  sat  in  her  little  cell  in  a  dull  stupor 
of  wretchedness,  she  heard  the  husband  and  wife  talking 
together.  They  thought  that  the  door  was  shut,  and  a  wail 
broke  from  her  adopted  mother. 

"  The  poor  child  will  die  of  grief!  " 

"  Yes,"  answered  Perez  in  a  faltering  voice  ;  "  but  what  can 
we  do  ?  Can  I  go  now  to  boast  of  my  ward's  chaste  beauty  to 
the  Comte  d'Arcos,  to  whom  I  hoped  to  marry  her?" 


264  THE  MARANAS. 

"There  is  a  difference  between  one  slip  and  vice,"  said 
the  old  woman,  indulgent  as  an  angel  could  have  been. 

"  Her  mother  gave  her  to  him,"  objected  Perez. 

"  All  in  a  minute,  and  without  consulting  her !  "  cried  Dofla 
Lagounia. 

4<  She  knew  quite  well  what  she  was  doing " 

"  Into  what  hands  our  pearl  will  pass  !  " 

"  Not  a  word  more,  or  I  will  go  and  pick  a  quarrel  with 
that Diard!" 

"  And  then  there  would  be  one  more  misfortune,"  exclaimed 
Dona  Lagounia. 

Juana,  listening  to  these  terrible  words,  knew  at  last  the 
value  of  the  happy  life  that  had  flowed  on  untroubled  until 
her  error  ended  it.  So  the  innocent  hours  in  her  peaceful 
retreat  were  to  have  been  crowned  by  a  brilliant  and  splendid 
existence;  the  delights  so  often  dreamed  of  would  have  been 
hers.  Those  dreams  had  caused  her  ruin.  She  had  fallen 
from  the  heights  of  social  greatness  to  the  feet  of  Monsieur 
Diard  !  Juana  wept ;  her  thoughts  almost  drove  her  mad. 
For  several  seconds  she  hesitated  between  a  life  of  vice  and 
religion.  Vice  offered  a  prompt  solution  ;  religion,  a  life 
made  up  of  suffering.  The  inward  debate  was  stormy  and 
solemn.  To-morrow  was  the  fatal  day,  the  day  fixed  for 
this  marriage.  It  was  not  too  late ;  Juana  might  be  Juana 
still.  If  she  remained  free,  she  knew  the  utmost  extent  of 
her  calamities;  but  when  married,  she  could  not  tell  what 
might  lie  in  store  for  her.  Religion  gained  the  day.  Dofla 
Lagounia  came  to  watch  and  pray  by  her  daughter's  side,  as 
she  might  have  done  by  a  dying  woman's  bed. 

"It  is  the  will  of  God,"  she  said  to  Juana.  Nature  gives 
to  a  woman  a  power  peculiarly  her  own,  that  enables  her  to 
endure  suffering,  a  power  succeeded  in  turn  by  weakness  that 
counsels  resignation.  Juana  submitted  without  an  after- 
thought. She  determined  to  fulfill  her  mother's  vow,  to  cross 
the  desert  of  life,  and  so   reach  heaven,  knowing  that   no 


THE   MAR  ANAS.  265 

flowers  could  spring  up  in  the  thorny  paths  that  lay  before  her. 
She  married  Diard. 

As  for  the  quartermaster,  though  Juana  judged  him  piti- 
lessly, who  else  would  not  have  forgiven  him  ?  He  was  intox- 
icated with  love.  ,  La  Marana,  with  the  quick  instinct  natural 
to  her,  had  felt  passion  in  the  tones  of  his  voice,  and  seen  in 
him  the  abrupt  temper,  the  impulsive  generosity  of  the  south. 
In  the  paroxysm  of  her  great  anger  she  had  seen  Diard's  good 
qualities,  and  these  only,  and  thought  that  these  were  sufficient 
guarantees  for  her  daughter's  happiness. 

And  to  all  appearance  the  early  days  of  this  marriage  were 
happy.  But  to  lay  bare  the  underlying  facts  of  the  case,  the 
miserable  secrets  that  women  bury  in  the  depths  of  their  souls, 
Juana  had  determined  that  she  would  not  overcloud  her 
husband's  joy.  All  women  who  are  victims  of  an  ill-assorted 
marriage  come  sooner  or  later  to  play  a  double  part — a  part 
terrible  to  play,  and  Juana  had  already  taken  up  her  role. 
Of  such  a  life,  a  man  can  only  record  the  facts  ;  and  women's 
hearts  alone  can  divine  the  inner  life  of  sentiments.  Is  it  not 
a  story  impossible  to  relate  in  all  its  truth?  Juana,  struggling 
every  hour  against  her  own  nature,  half-Spanish,  half-Italian  ; 
Juana,  shedding  tears  in  secret  till  she  had  no  tears  left  to 
shed,  was  a  typical  creation,  a  living  symbol,  destined  to 
represent  the  uttermost  extent  of  woman's  misfortunes.  The 
minute  detail  required  to  depict  that  life  of  restless  pain  would 
be  without  interest  for  those  who  crave  melodramatic  sensa- 
tion. And  would  not  an  analysis,  in  which  every  wife  would 
discover  some  of  her  own  experience,  require  an  entire  volume 
if  it  were  to  be  given  in  full  ?  Such  a  book,  by  its  very  nature, 
would  be  impossible  to  write,  for  its  merits  must  consist  in 
half-tones  and  in  subtle  shades  of  color  that  critics  would 
consider  vague  and  indistinct.  And  besides,  who  that  does  not 
bear  another  heart  within  his  heart  can  touch  on  the  pathetic, 
deeply-hidden  tragedies  that  some  women  take  with  them 
to  their  graves  ;  the  heartache,  understood  of  none — not  even 


266  THE  MAR  ANAS. 

of  those  who  cause  it  ;  the  sighs  in  vain ;  the  devotion  that, 
here  on  earth  at  least,  meets  with  no  return  ;  unappreciated 
magnanimities  of  silence  and  scorn  of  vengeance  ;  unfailing 
generosity,  lavished  in  vain  ;  longings  for  happiness  destined 
to  be  unfulfilled ;  angelic  charity  that  blesses  in  secret ;  all 
the  beliefs  held  sacred,  all  the  inextinguishable  love?  This 
life  Juana  knew;  fate  spared  her  in  nothing.  Hers  was  to 
be  in  all  things  the  lot  of  a  wronged  and  unhappy  wife, 
always  forgiving  her  wrongs  ;  a  woman  pure  as  a  flawless 
diamond,  though  through  her  beauty,  as  flawless  and  as 
dazzling  as  the  diamond,  a  way  of  revenge  lay  open  to  her. 
Of  a  truth,  she  need  not  dread  the  dagger  in  her  dower. 

But  at  first,  under  the  influence  of  love,  of  a  passion  that  for 
a  while  at  least  can  work  a  change  in  the  most  depraved 
nature,  and  bring  to  light  all  that  is  noblest  in  a  human  soul, 
Diard  behaved  like  a  man  of  honor.  He  compelled  Monte- 
fiore  to  go  out  of  the  regiment,  and  even  out  of  that  division 
of  the  army,  that  his  wife  might  not  be  compelled  to  meet  the 
Marquis  during  the  short  time  that  she  was  to  remain  in 
Spain.  Then  the  quartermaster  asked  to  change  his  regiment, 
and  managed  to  exchange  into  the  Imperial  Guard.  He 
meant  at  all  costs  to  gain  a  title  ;  he  would  have  honors  and  a 
great  position  to  match  his  great  fortune.  With  this  thought 
in  his  mind,  he  displayed  great  courage  in  one  of  our  bloodiest 
battles  in  Germany,  and  was  so  badly  wounded  that  he  could 
no  longer  stay  in  the  service.  For  a  time  it  was  feared  that 
he  might  have  to  lose  his  leg,  and-he  was  forced  to  retire,  with 
his  pension  indeed,  but  without  the  title  of  baron  or  any 
of  the  rewards  which  he  had  hoped  for,  and  very  likely  would 
have  won,  if  his  name  had  not  been  Diard. 

These  events,  together  with  his  wound  and  his  disappointed 
hopes,  made  a  changed  man  of  the  late  quartermaster.  The 
Provencal's  energy,  wrought  for  a  time  to  a  fever  pitch,  sud- 
denly deserted  him.  At  first,  however,  his  wife  sustained  his 
courage  ;  his  efforts,  his  bravery,  and  his  ambition  had  given 


THE   MA  RAN  AS.  267 

her  some  belief  in  her  husband  ;  and  surely  it  behooved  her, 
of  all  women,  to  play  a  woman's  part,  to  be  a  tender  consoler 
for  the  troubles  of  life. 

Juana's  words  put  fresh  heart  into  the  major.  He  went  to 
live  in  Paris,  determined  to  make  a  high  position  for  himself 
in  the  administration ;  the  quartermaster  of  the  Sixth  Line 
Regiment  should  be  forgotten,  and  some  day  Madame  Diard 
should  wear  a  splendid  title.  His  passion  for  his  charming 
wife  had  made  him  quick  to  guess  her  inmost  wishes.  Juana 
did  not  speak  of  them,  but  he  understood  her;  he  was  not 
loved  as  a  man  dreams  of  being  loved — he  knew  it,  and 
longed  to  be  looked  up  to  and  loved  and  caressed.  The 
luckless  man  anticipated  happiness  with  a  wife  who  was  at  all 
times  so  submissive  and  so  gentle  ;  but  her  gentleness  and  her 
submission  meant  nothing  but  that  resignation  to  her  fate 
which  had  given  Juana  to  him.  Resignation  and  religion, 
were  these  love  ?  Diard  could  often  have  wished  for  a  refusal 
instead  of  that  wifely  obedience ;  often  he  would  have  given 
his  soul  if  Juana  would  but  have  deigned  to  weep  upon  his 
breast,  and  ceased  to  conceal  her  feelings  with  the  smile  that 
she  wore  proudly  as  a  mask  upon  her  face. 

Many  a  man  in  his  youth  (for  after  a  certain  time  we  give 
up  struggling)  strives  to  triumph  over  an  evil  destiny  that 
brings  the  thunder-clouds  from  time  to  time  above  the  horizon 
of  his  life;  and  when  he  falls  into  the  depths  of  misfortune, 
those  unrequited  struggles  should  be  taken  into  account. 
Like  many  another,  Diard  tried  all  ways,  and  found  all  ways 
barred  against  him.  His  wealth  enabled  him  to  surround  his 
wife  with  all  the  luxuries  that  can  be  enjoyed  in  Paris.  She 
had  a  great  mansion  and  vast  drawing-rooms,  and  presided 
over  one  of  those  houses  frequented  by  some  few  artists  who 
are  uncritical  by  nature,  by  a  great  many  schemers,  by  the 
frivolous  folk  who  are  ready  to  go  anywhere  to  be  amused, 
and  by  certain  men  of  fashion,  attracted  by  Juana's  beauty. 
Those  who  make  themselves  conspicuous  in  Paris  must  either 


268  THE  MARANAS. 

conquer  Paris  or  fall  victims.  Diard's  character  was  not 
strong  enough,  nor  compact  enough,  nor  persistent  enough  to 
impress  itself  upon  the  society  of  a  time  when  every  one  else 
was  likewise  bent  upon  reaching  a  high  position.  Ready- 
made  social  classifications  are  not  improbably  a  great  blessing, 
even  for  the  people.  Napoleon's  "  Memoirs"  have  informed 
us  of  the  pains  he  was  at  to  impose  social  conventions  upon  a 
court  composed  for  the  most  part  of  subjects  who  had  once 
been  his  equals.  But  Napoleon  was  a  Corsican,  Diard  was  a 
Provencal. 

If  the  two  men  had  been  mentally  equal — an  islander  is 
always  a  more  complete  human  being  than  a  man  born  and 
bred  on  the  mainland  ;  and  though  Provence  and  Corsica  lie 
between  the  same  degrees  of  latitude,  the^  narrow  stretch  of 
sea  that  keeps  them  apart  is,  in  spite  of  man's  inventions,  a 
whole  ocean  that  makes  two  different  countries  of  them  both. 

From  this  false  position,  which  Diard  falsified  yet  further, 
grave  misfortunes  arose.  Perhaps  there  is  a  useful  lesson  to 
be  learned  by  tracing  the  chain  of  interdependent  facts  that 
imperceptibly  brought  about  the  catastrophe  of  the  story. 

In  the  first  place,  Parisian  scoffers  could  not  see  the  pictures 
that  adorned  the  late  quartermaster's  mansion  without  a  sig- 
nificant smile.  The  recently  purchased  masterpieces  were  all 
condemned  by  the  unspoken  slur  cast  upon  the  pictures  that 
had  been  the  spoils  of  war  in  Spain  ;  by  this  slur,  self-love 
avenged  itself  for  the  involuntary  offense  of  Diard's  wealth. 
Juana  understood  the  meaning  of  some  of  the  ambiguous  com- 
pliments in  which  the  French  excel.  Acting  upon  her  advice, 
therefore,  her  husband  sent  the  Spanish  pictures  back  to  Tara- 
gona.  But  the  world  of  Paris,  determined  to  put  the  wors* 
construction  on  the  matter,  said,  "  That  fellow  Diard  is 
shrewd;  he  has  sold  his  pictures."  and  the  good  folk  con- 
tinued to  believe  that  the  paintings  which  still  hung  on  the 
walls  had  not  been  honestly  come  by.  Then  some  ill-natured 
women  inquired  how  a  Diard  had  come  to  marry  a  young  wife 


THE  MARANAS.  269 

so  rich  and  so  beautiful.  Comments  followed,  endless  absurdi- 
ties were  retailed,  after  the  manner  of  Paris.  If  Juana  rose 
above  it  all,  even  above  the  scandal,  and  met  with  nothing 
but  the  respect  due  to  her  pure  and  devout  life,  that  respect 
ended  with  her,  and  was  not  accorded  to  her  husband.  Her 
shining  eyes  glanced  over  her  rooms,  and  her  woman's  clear- 
sightedness brought  her  nothing  but  pain.  And  yet — the 
disparagement  was  quite  explicable.  Military  men,  for  all 
the  virtues  with  which  romance  endows  them,  could  not  for- 
give the  quondam  quartermaster  for  his  wealth  and  his  deter- 
mination to  cut  a  figure  in  Paris,  and  for  that  very  reason. 

There  is  a  world  in  Paris  that  lies  between  the  farthest 
house  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  last  mansion  in  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare  on  the  other ;  be- 
tween the  rising  ground  of  the  Luxembourg  and  the  heights 
of  Montmartre ;  a  world  that  dresses  and  gossips,  dresses  to 
go  out,  and  goes  out  to  gossip ;  a  world  of  petty  and  great 
airs ;  a  world  of  mean  and  poor  ambitions,  masquerading  in 
insolence  ;  a  world  of  envy  and  of  fawning  arts.  It  is  made 
up  of  gilded  rank,  and  rank  that  has  lost  its  gilding,  of  young 
and  old,  of  nobility  of  the  fourth  century  and  titles  of  yes- 
terday, of  those  who  laugh  at  the  expense  of  a  parvenu,  and 
others  who  fear  to  be  contaminated  by  him,  of  men  eager  for 
the  downfall  of  a  power,  though  none  the  less  they  will  bow 
the  knee  to  it  if  it  holds  its  own  ;  and  all  these  ears  hear,  and 
all  these  tongues  repeat,  and  all  these  minds  are  informed  in 
the  course  of  an  evening  of  the  birthplace,  education,  and 
previous  history  of  each  new  aspirant  for  its  high-places.  If 
there  is  no  High  Court  of  Justice  in  this  exalted  sphere,  it 
boasts  the  most  ruthless  of  procurors-general,  an  intangible 
public  opinion  that  dooms  the  victim  and  carries  out  the  sen- 
tence, that  accuses  and  brands  the  delinquent.  Do  not  hope 
to  hide  anything  from  this  tribunal,  tell  everything  at  once 
yourself,  for  it  is  determined  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  every- 
thing, and  knows  everything.     Do  not  seek  to  understand  the 


270  THE   MARANAS. 

mysterious  operation  by  which  intelligence  is  flashed  from 
place  to  place,  so  that  a  story,  a  scandal,  or  a  piece  of  news 
is  known  everywhere  simultaneously  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye.  Do  not  ask  who  set  the  machinery  in  motion  ;  it  is  a 
social  mystery,  no  observer  can  do  more  than  watch  its  phe- 
nomena, and  its  working  is  rapid  beyond  belief.  A  single 
example  shall  suffice.  The  murder  of  the  Due  de  Berri,  at 
the  opera,  was  known  in  the  farthest  part  of  the  He  Saint- 
Louis  ten  minutes  after  the  crime  was  committed.  The  opin- 
ion of  the  Sixth  Regiment  of  the  line  concerning  Diard  per- 
meated this  world  of  Paris  on  the  very  evening  of  his  first  ball. 
So  Diard  himself  could  accomplish  nothing.  Henceforward 
his  wife,  and  his  wife  alone,  might  make  a  way  for  him. 
Strange  portent  of  a  strange  civilization  !  If  a  man  can  do 
nothing  by  himself  in  Paris,  he  has  still  some  chance  of  rising 
in  the  world  if  his  wife  is  young  and  clever.  There  are 
women,  weak  to  all  appearance,  invalids  who,  without  rising 
from  their  sofas  or  leaving  their  rooms,  make  their  influence 
felt  in  society,  and,  by  bringing  countless  secret  springs  into 
play,  gain  for  their  husbands  the  position  which  their  own 
vanity  desires.  But  Juana,  whose  girlhood  had  been  spent  in 
the  quaint  simplicity  of  the  narrow  house  in  Taragona,  knew 
nothing  of  the  corruption,  the  baseness,  or  the  opportunities 
afforded  by  life  in  Paris ;  she  looked  out  upon  it  with  girlish 
curiosity,  and  learned  from  it  no  worldly  wisdom  save  the 
lessons  taught  her  by  her  wounded  pride  and  susceptibilities. 
Juana,  moreover,  possessed  the  quick  instinct  of  a  maiden 
heart,  and  was  as  swift  to  anticipate  an  impression  as  a  sensi- 
tive plant.  The  lonely  girl  had  become  a  woman  all  at  once. 
She  saw  that  if  she  endeavored  to  compel  society  to  honor 
her  husband,  it  must  be  after  the  Spanish  fashion,  of  telling  a 
lie,  carbine  in  hand.  Did  not  her  own  constant  watchfulness 
tell  her  how  necessary  her  manifold  precautions  were  ?  A  gulf 
yawned  for  Diard  between  the  failure  to  make  himself  re- 
spected and  the  opposite  danger  of  being  respected  but  too 


THE  MARANAS.  271 

much.  Then  as  suddenly  as  before,  when  she  had  foreseen 
her  life,  there  came  a  revelation  of  the  world  to  her;  she 
beheld  on  all  sides  the  vast  extent  of  an  irreparable  mis- 
fortune. Then  came  the  tardy  recognition  of  her  husband's 
peculiar  weaknesses,  his  total  unfitness  to  play  the  parts  he 
had  assigned  to  himself,  the  incoherency  of  his  ideas',  the 
mental  incapacity  to  grasp  this  society  as  a  whole,  or  to  com- 
prehend the  subtleties  that  are  all-important  there.  Would 
not  tact  effect  more  for  a  man  in  his  position  than  force  of 
character  ?  But  the  tact  that  never  fails  is  perhaps  the  greatest 
of  all  forces. 

So  far  from  effacing  the  blot  upon  the  Diard  scutcheon,  the 
major  was  at  no  little  pains  to  make  matters  worse.  For 
instance,  as  it  had  not  occurred  to  him  that  the  Empire  was 
passing  through  a  phase  that  required  careful  study,  he  tried, 
though  he  was  only  a  major,  to  obtain  an  appointment  as  pre- 
fect. At  that  time  almost  every  one  believed  in  Napoleon  ; 
his  favor  had  increased  the  importance  of  every  post.  The 
prefectures,  those  empires  on  a  small  scale,  could  only  be 
filled  by  men  with  great  names,  by  the  gentlemen  of  the 
household  of  his  majesty  the  Emperor  and  King.  The  pre- 
fects by  this  time  were  Grand  Viziers.  These  minions  of  the 
great  man  laughed  at  Major  Diard's  artless  ambitions,  and  he 
was  fain  to  solicit  a  sub-prefecture.  His  modest  pretensions 
were  ludicrously  disproportioned  to  his  vast  wealth.  After 
this  ostentatious  display  of  luxury,  how  could  the  millionaire 
leave  the  royal  splendors  of  his  house  in  Paris  for  Issoudun  or 
Savenay?  Would  it  not  be  a  descent  unworthy  of  his  for- 
tunes? Juana,  who  had  come  to  understand  our  laws  and 
the  manners  and  customs  of  our  administration,  too  late 
enlightened  her  husband.  Diard,  in  his  desperation,  went 
begging  to  all  the  powers  that  be;  but  Diard  met  with 
nothing  but  rebuffs,  no  way  was  open  to  him.  Then  people 
judged  him  as  the  government  had  judged  him,  and  passed 
his  own  verdict  upon  himself.     Diard  had  been  badly  wounded 


272  THE  MA  RAN  AS. 

on  the  field  of  battle,  and  Diard  had  not  been  decorated. 
The  quartermaster,  who  had  gained  wealth,  but  no  esteem, 
found  no  place  under  the  government,  and  society  quite 
logically  refused  him  the  social  position  to  which  he  had 
aspired.  In  short,  in  his  own  house  the  unfortunate  man  con- 
tinually felt  that  his  wife  was  his  superior.  He  had  come  to 
feel  it  in  spite  of  the  "  velvet  glove  "  (if  the  metaphor  is  not 
too  bold)  that  disguised  from  her  husband  the  supremacy  that 
astonished  her  herself,  while  she  felt  humiliated  by  it.  It 
produced  its  effect  upon  Diard  at  last. 

A  man  who  plays  a  losing  game  like'  this  is  bound  to  lose 
heart,  and  to  grow  either  a  greater  or  a  worse  man  for  it ; 
Diard's  courage,  or  his  passion,  was  sure  to  diminish,  after 
repeated  blows  dealt  to  his  self-love,  and  he  made  mistake 
upon  mistake.  From  the  first  everything  had  been  against 
him,  even  his  own  habits  and  his  own  character.  The  vices 
and  virtues  of  the  impulsive  Provencal  were  equally  patent. 
The  fibres  of  his  nature  were  like  harp-strings,  and  every  old 
friend  had  a  place  in  his  heart.  He  was  as  prompt  to  relieve 
a  comrade  in  abject  poverty  as  the  distress  of  another  of  high 
rank ;  in  short,  he  never  forgot  a  friend,  and  filled  his  gilded 
rooms  with  poor  wretches  down  on  their  luck.  Beholding 
which  things,  the  general  of  the  old  stamp  (a  species  that  will 
soon  be  extinct)  was  apt  to  greet  Diard  in  an  off-hand  fashion, 
and  address  him  with  a  patronizing,  ct  Well,  my  dear  fellow  !  " 
when  they  met.  If  the  generals  of  the  Empire  concealed 
their  insolence  beneath  an  assumption  of  a  soldier's  bluff 
familiarity,  the  few  people  of  fashion  whom  Diard  met  showed 
him  the  polite  and  well-bred  contempt  against  which  a  self- 
made  man  is  nearly  always  powerless.  Diard's  behavior  and 
speech,  like  his  half-Italian  accent,  his  dress,  and  everything 
about  him,  combined  to  lower  him  in  the  eyes  of  ordinary 
minds ;  for  the  unwritten  code  of  good  manners  and  good 
taste  is  a  binding  tradition  that  only  the  greatest  power  can 
shake  off.     Such  is  the  way  of  the  world. 


THE   MARANAS.  273 

These  details  give  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  Juana's  martyr- 
dom. The  pangs  were  endured  one  by  one.  Every  social 
species  contributed  its  pin-prick,  and  hers  was  a  soul  that 
would  have  welcomed  dagger-thrusts  in  preference.  It  was 
intolerably  painful  to  watch  Diard  receiving  insults  that  he 
did  not  feel,  insults  that  Juana  must  feel  though  they  were  not 
meant  for,  her.  A  final  and  dreadful  illumination  came  at  last 
for  her ;  it  cast  a  light  upon  the  future,  and  she  knew  all  the 
sorrows  that  it  held  in  store.  She  had  seen  already  that  her 
husband  was  quite  incapable  of  mounting  to  the  highest 
rung  of  the  social  ladder,  but  now  she  saw  the  inevitable 
depths  to  which  he  must  fall  when  he  should  lose  heart ;  and 
then  a  feeling  of  pity  for  Diard  came  over  her. 

The  future  that  lay  before  her  was  very  dark.  Juana  had 
never  ceased  to  feel  an  overhanging  dread  of  some  evil, 
though  whence  it  should  come  she  knew  not.  This  presenti- 
ment haunted  her  inmost  soul,  as  contagion  hovers  in  the  air ; 
but  she  was  able  to  hide  her  anguish  with  smiles.  She  had 
reached  the  point  when  she  no  longer  thought  of  herself. 

Juana  used  her  influence  to  persuade  Diard  to  renounce  his 
social  ambitions,  pointing  out  to  him  as  a  refuge  the  peaceful 
and  gracious,  life  of  the  domestic  hearth.  All  their  troubles 
came  from  without ;  why  should  they  not  shut  out  the  world  ? 
In  his  own  home  Diard  would  find  peace  and  respect  ;  he 
should  reign  there.  She  felt  that  she  had  courage  enough  to 
undertake  the  trying  task  of  making  him  happy,  this  man  dis- 
satisfied with  himself.  Her  energy  had  increased  with  the 
difficulties  of  her  life  ;  she  had  within  her  the  heroic  spirit 
needed  by  a  woman  in  her  position,  and  felt  the  stirrings  of 
those  religious  aspirations  which  are  cherished  by  the  guardian 
angel  appointed  to  watch  over  a  Christian  soul,  for  this  poetic 
superstitious  fancy  is  an  allegory  that  expresses  the  idea  of  the 
two  natures  within  us. 

Diard  renounced  his  ambitions,  closed  his  house,  and 
literally  shut  himself  up  in  it,  if  it  is  allowable  to  make  use 
18 


274  THE  MARANAS. 

of  so  familiar  a  phrase.  But  therein  lay  the  danger.  Diard 
was  one  of  those  centrifugal  souls  who  must  always  be  moving 
about.  The  luckless  soldier's  turn  of  mind  was  such  that  no 
sooner  had  he  arrived  in  a  place  than  this  restless  instinct 
forthwith  drove  him  to  depart.  Natures  of  this  kind  have  but 
one  end  in  life ;  they  must  come  and  go  unceasingly  like  the 
wheels  spoken  of  in  the  Scriptures.  It  may  have  been  that 
Diard  would  fain  have  escaped  from  himself.  He  was  not 
weary  of  Juana ;  she  had  given  him  no  cause  to  blame  her, 
but  with  possession  his  passion  for  her  had  grown  less  absorb- 
ing, and  his  character  asserted  itself  again. 

Thenceforward  his  moments  of  despondency  came  more 
frequently  ;  he  gave  way  more  often  to  his  quick  southern 
temper.  The  more  virtuous  and  irreproachable  a  woman  is, 
the  more  a  man  delights  to  find  her  in  fault,  if  only  to 
demonstrate  his  titular  superiority ;  but  if  by  chance  she  com- 
pels his  respect,  he  must  needs  fabricate  faults,  and  so  between 
the  husband  and  wife  nothings  are  exaggerated  and  trifles  be- 
come mountains.  But  Juana's  meek  patience  and  gentle- 
ness, untinged  with  the  bitterness  that  women  can  infuse  into 
their  submission,  gave  no  handle  to  this  fault-finding  of  set 
purpose,  the  most  unkind  of  all.  Hers  was,  moreover,  one  of 
those  noble  natures  for  whom  it  is  impossible  to  fail  in  duty ; 
her  pure  and  holy  life  shone  in  those  eyes  with  the  martyr's 
expression  in  them  that  haunted  the  imagination.  Diard  first 
grew  weary,  then  he  chafed,  and  ended  by  finding  this  lofty 
virtue  an  intolerable  yoke.  His  wife's  discretion  left  him  no 
room  for  violent  sensations,  and  he  craved  excitement.  Thou- 
sands of  such  dramas  lie  hidden  away  in  the  souls  of  men  and 
women,  beneath  the  uninteresting  surface  of  apparently  simple 
and  commonplace  lives.  It  is  difficult  to  choose  an  example 
from  among  the  many  scenes  that  last  for  so  short  a  time,  and 
leave  such  ineffaceable  traces  in  a  life ;  scenes  that  are  almost 
always  precursors  of  the  calamity  that  is  written  in  the  destiny 
of  most  marriages.     Still  one  scene  may  be  described,  because 


THE  MARANAS.  275 

it  sharply  marks  the  first  beginnings  of  a  misunderstanding 
between  these  two,  and  may  in  some  degree  explain  the  catas- 
trophe of  the  story. 

Juana  had  two  children  ;  luckily  for  her,  they  were  both 
boys.  The  oldest  was  born  seven  months  after  her  marriage  ; 
he  was  named  Juan,  and  was  like  his  mother.  Two  years 
after  they  came  to  Paris  her  second  son  was  born  ;  he  re- 
sembled Diard  and  Juana,  but  he  was  more  like  Diard,  whose 
names  he  bore.  Juana  had  given  the  most  tender  care  to 
little  Francisco.  For  the  five  years  of  his  life  his  mother  was 
absorbed  in  this  child;  he  had  more  than  his  share  of  kisses 
and  caresses  and  playthings ;  and  besides  and  beyond  all 
this,  his  mother's  penetrating  eyes  watched  him  continually. 
Juana  studied  his  character  even  in  the  cradle,  noticing  heed- 
fully  his  cries  and  movements,  that  she  might  direct  his  educa- 
tion. Juana  seemed  to  have  but  that  one  child.  The  Pro- 
vencal, seeing  that  Juan  was  almost  neglected,  began  to  take 
notice  of  the  older  boy.  He  would  not  ask  himself  whether 
the  little  one  was  the  offspring  of  the  short-lived  love  affair  to 
which  he  owed  Juana,  and  by  a  piece  of  rare  flattery  made  of 
Juan  his  Benjamin.  Of  all  the  nice  inheritance  of  passions 
which  preyed  upon  her,  Mme.  Diard  gave  way  but  to  one — a 
mother's  love ;  she  loved  her  children  with  the  same  vehe- 
mence and  intensity  that  La  Marana  had  shown  for  her  child 
in  the  first  part  of  this  story;  but  to  this  love  she  added  a 
gracious  delicacy  of  feeling,  a  quick  and  keen  comprehension 
of  the  social  virtues  that  it  had  been  her  pride  to  practice,  in 
which  she  had  found  her  recompense.  The  secret  thought  of 
the  conscientious  fulfillment  of  the  duties  of  motherhood  had 
been  a  crude  element  of  poetry  that  left  its  impress  on  La 
Marana* s  life ;  but  Juana  could  be  a  mother  openly  ;  it  was 
her  hourly  consolation.  Her  own  mother  had  been  virtuous 
as  other  women  are  criminal,  by  stealth;  she  had  stolen  her 
illicit  happiness,  she  had  not  known  all  the  sweetness  of  secure 
possession.     But  Juana,  whose  life  of  virtue  was  as  dreary  as 


276  THE   MAR  ANAS. 

her  mother's  life  of  sin,  knew  every  hour  the  ineffable  joys  for 
which  that  mother  had  longed  in  vain.  For  her,  as  for  La 
Marana,  motherhood  summed  up  all  earthly  affection,  and 
both  the  Maranas  from  opposite  causes  had  but  this  one  com- 
fort in  their  desolation.  Perhaps  Juana' s  love  was  the  stronger, 
because,  shut  out  from  all  other  love,  her  children  became  all 
in  all  to  her,  and  because  a  noble  passion  has  this  in  common 
with  vice :  it  grows  by  what  it  feeds  upon.  The  mother  and 
the  gambler  are  alike  insatiable. 

Juana  was  touched  by  the  generous  pardon  extended  over 
Juan's  head  by  Diard's  fatherly  affection,  and  thenceforward 
the  relations  between  husband  and  wife  were  changed ;  the 
interest  which  Diard's  Spanish  wife  had  taken  in  him  from  a 
sense  of  duty  only  became  a  deep  and  sincere  feeling.  Had 
he  been  less  inconsequent  in  his  life,  if  fickleness  and  spas- 
modic changes  of  feeling  on  his  part  had  not  quenched  that 
flicker  of  timid  but  real  sympathy,  Juana  must  surely  have 
loved  him;  but,  unluckily,  Diard's  character  belonged  to  the 
quick-witted  southern  type,  that  has  no  continuity  in  its  ideas; 
such  men  will  be  capable  of  heroic  actions  over  night,  and 
sink  into  nonentities  on  the  morrow;  often  they  are  made  to 
suffer  for  their  virtues,  often  their  worst  defects  contribute  to 
their  success :  and  for  the  rest,  they  are  great  when  their 
good  qualities  are  pressed  into  the  service  of  an  unflagging 
will.  For  two  years  Diard  had  been  a  prisoner  in  his  home, 
a  prisoner  bound  by  the  sweetest  of  all  chains.  He  lived, 
almost  against  his  will,  beneath  the  influence  of  a  wife  who 
kept  him  amused,  and  was  always  bright  and  cheerful  for  him, 
a  wife  who  devoted  all  her  powers  of  coquetry  to  beguiling 
him  iuto  the  ways  of  virtue ;  and  yet  all  her  ingenuity  could 
not  deceive  him,  and  he  knew  this  was  not  love. 

Just  about  that  time  a  murder  caused  a  great  sensation  in 
Paris.  A  captain  of  the  armies  of  the  Republic  had  killed 
a  woman  in  a  paroxysm  of  debauchery.  Diard  told  the  story 
to  Juana  when  he  came  home  to  dine.     The  officer,  he  said, 


THE  MARANAS.  277 

had  taken  his  own  life  to  avoid  the  ignominy  of  a  trial  and 
the  infamous  death  of  a  criminal.  At  first  Juana  could  not 
understand  the  reason  for  his  conduct,  and  her  husband  was 
obliged  to  explain  to  her  the  admirable  provision  of  the 
French  law,  which  takes  no  proceedings  against  the  dead. 

''But,  papa,  didn't  you  tell  us  the  other  day  that  the  King 
can  pardon  anybody?  "  asked  Francisco. 

"The  King  can  only  grant  /ife,"  said  Juan,  nettled. 

Diard  and  Juana  watched  this  little  scene  with  very  different 
feeling.  The  tears  of  happiness  in  Juana's  eyes  as  she  glanced 
at  her  oldest  boy  let  her  husband  see  with  fatal  clearness 
into  the  real  secrets  of  that  hitherto  inscrutable  heart.  Her 
older  boy  was  Juana's  own  child  ;  Juana  knew  his  nature ; 
she  was  sure  of  him  and  of  his  future ;  she  worshiped  him, 
and  her  great  love  was  a  secret  known  only  to  her  child  and 
to  God.  Juan,  in  his  secret  heart,  gladly  endured  his  mother's 
sharp  speeches.  What  if  she  seemed  to  frown  upon  him  in 
the  presence  of  his  father  and  brother,  when  she  showered 
passionate  kisses  upon  him  when  they  were  alone?  Francisco 
was  Diard's  child,  and  Juana's  care  meant  that  she  wished  to 
check  the  growth  of  his  father's  faults  in  him  and  to  develop 
his  good  qualities. 

Juana,  unconscious  that  she  had  spoken  too  plainly  in  that 
glance,  took  little  Francisco  on  her  knee;  and,  her  sweet 
voice  faltering  somewhat  with  the  gladness  that  Juan's  answer 
had  caused  her,  gave  the  younger  boy  the  teaching  suited  to 
his  childish  mind. 

"  His  training  requires  great  care,"  the  father  said,  speak- 
ing to  Juana. 

"Yes,"  she  answered  simply. 

"  Bui-Juan  fv 

The  tone  in  which  the  two  words  were  uttered  startled  Mme. 
Diard.     She  looked  up  at  her  husband. 

"Juan  was  born  perfection,"  he  added,  and  having  thus 
delivered  himself,  he  sat  down  and  looked  gloomily  at  his 


278  THE   MAR  A  MAS. 

wife.  She  was  silent,  so  he  went  on,  "  You  love  one  of  your 
children  better  than  the  other." 

"  You  know  it  quite  well,"  she  said. 

"No  !  "  returned  Diard.  "Until  this  moment  I  did  not 
know  which  of  them  you  loved  the  most." 

"But  neither  of  them  has  as  yet  caused  me  any  sorrow," 
she  answered  quickly. 

"No,  but  which  of  them  has  given  you  more  joys?"  he 
asked  still  more  quickly. 

"I  have  not  kept  any  reckoning  of  them." 

"  Women  are  very  deceitful  I  "  cried  Diard.  "  Do  you  dare 
to  tell  me  that  Juan  is  not  the  darling  of  your  heart?  " 

"  And  if  he  were,"  she  said,  with  gentle  dignity,  "do  you 
mean  that  it  would  be  a  misfortune?  " 

"You  have  never  loved  me  !  If  you  had  chosen,  I  might 
have  won  kingdoms  for  you  with  my  sword.  You  know  all 
that  I  have  tried  to  do,  sustained  by  one  thought — a  longing 
that  you  might  care  for  me.  Ah  !  if  you  had  but  loved 
me " 

"A  woman  who  loves,"  said  Juana,  "lives  in  solitude  far 
from  the  world.     Is  not  that  what  we  are  doing?" 

"  Oh  !   I  know,  Juana,  that  you  are  never  in  the  wrong." 

The  words,  spoken  with  such  intense  bitterness,  brought 
about  a  coolness  between  them  that  lasted  the  rest  of  their  lives. 

On  the  morrow  of  that  fatal  day,  Diard  sought  out  one  of 
his  old  cronies,  and  with  him  sought  distraction  at  the  gaming- 
table. Unluckily,  he  won  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  he 
began  to  play  regularly.  Little  by  little  he  slipped  back  into 
his  old  dissipated  life.  After  a  short  time  he  no  longer  dined 
at  home.  A  few  months  were  spent  in  the  enjoyment  of  the 
first  pleasures  of  freedom  ;  he  made  up  his  mind  that  he 
would  not  part  with  it,  left  the  large  apartments  of  the  house 
to  his  wife,  and  took  up  his  abode  separately  on  the  entresol. 
By  the  end  of  the  year  Diard  and  Juana  only  met  once  a 
day — at  breakfast-time. 


THE   MARANAS.  279 

In  a  few  words,  like  all  gamblers,  he  had  runs  of  good  and 
bad  luck;  but  as  he  was  reluctant  to  touch  his  capital,  he 
wished  to  have  entire  control  of  their  income,  and  his  wife 
accordingly  ceased  to  take  any  part  in  the  management  of  the 
household  economy.  Mistrust  had  succeeded  to  the  bound- 
less confidence  that  he  had  once  placed  in  her.  As  to  money 
matters,  which  had  formerly  been  arranged  by  both  husband 
and  wife,  he  adopted  the  plan  of  a  monthly  allowance  for  her 
own  expenses ;  they  settled  the  amount  of  it  together  in  the 
last  of  the  confidential  talks  that  form  one  of  the  most  attrac- 
tive charms  of  marriage. 

The  barrier  of  silence  between  two  hearts  is  a  real  divorce, 
accomplished  on  the  day  when  husband  and  wife  say  we  no 
longer.  When  that  day  came,  Juana  knew  that  she  was  no 
longer  a  wife,  but  a  mother  ;  she  was  not  unhappy,  and  did 
not  seek  to  guess  the  reason  of  the  misfortune.  It  was  a 
great  pity.  Children  consolidate,  as  it  were,  the  lives  of 
their  parents,  and  the  life  that  her  husband  led  apart  was  to 
weave  sadness  and  anguish  for  others  as  well  as  for  Juana. 
Diard  lost  no  time  in  making  use  of  his  newly-regained  lib- 
erty; he  played  high,  and  lost  and  won  enormous  sums.  He 
was  a  good  and  bold  player,  and  gained  a  great  reputation. 
The  respect  which  he  had  failed  to  win  in  society  in  the  days 
of  the  Empire  was  accorded  now  to  the  wealth  that  was  risked 
upon  a  green  table,  to  a  talent  for  all  and  any  of  the  games 
of  chance  of  that  period.  Ambassadors,  financiers,  men  with 
large  fortunes,  jaded  pleasure-seekers  in  quest  of  excitement 
and  extreme  sensations  admired  Diard's  play  at  their  clubs; 
they  rarely  asked  him  to  their  houses,  but  they  all  played  with 
him. 

Diard  became  the  fashion.  Once  or  twice  during  the 
winter  his  independent  spirit  led  him  to  give  a  fete  to  return 
the  courtesies  that  he  had  received,  and  by  glimpses  Juana 
saw  something  of  society  again  ;  there  was  a  brief  return  of 
balls  and  banquets,  of  luxury  and  brilliantly-lighted  rooms ; 


280  THE  MARANAS. 

but  all  these  things  she  regarded  as  a  sort  of  duty  levied 
upon  her  happiness  and  solitude. 

The  queen  of  these  high  festivals  appeared  in  them  like 
some  creature  fallen  from  an  unknown  world.  Her  simplicity 
that  nothing  had  spoiled,  a  certain  maidenliness  of  soul  with 
which  the  changed  conditions  of  her  life  had  invested  her, 
her  beauty,  her  unaffected  modesty,  won  sincere  admiration. 
But  Juana  saw  few  women  among  her  guests;  and  it  was  plain 
to  her  mind  that  if  her  husband  had  ordered  his  life  differ- 
ently without  taking  her  into  his  confidence,  he  had  not  risen 
in  the  esteem  of  the  world. 

Diard  was  not  always  lucky.  In  three  years  he  had  squan- 
dered three-fourths  of  his  fortune  ;  but  he  drew  from  his  pas- 
sion for  gambling  sufficient  energy  to  satisfy  it.  He  had  a 
large  circle  of  acquaintance,  and  was  hand  and  glove  with 
certain  swindlers  on  the  Stock  Exchange — gentry  who,  since 
the  Revolution,  have  established  the  principle  that  robbery 
on  a  large  scale  is  a  mere  peccadillo,  transferring  to  the  lan- 
guage of  the  counting-house  the  brazen  epithets  of  the  license 
of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Diard  became  a  speculator,  engaged  in  the  peculiar  kinds 
of  business  described  as  li  shady  "  in  the  slang  of  the  Palais. 
He  managed  to  get  hold  of  poor  wretches  ignorant  of  com- 
mercial red-tape,  and  '*reary  of  everlasting  proceedings  in 
liquidation  ;  he  would  buy  up  their  claims  on  the  debtor's 
estate  for  a  small  sum,  arrange  the  matter  with  the  assignees 
in  the  course  of  an  evening,  and  divide  the  spoil  with  the 
latter.  When  liquifiable  debts  were  not  to  be  found,  he  looked 
out  for  floating  debts  ;  he  unearthed  and  revived  claims  in 
abeyance  in  Europe  and  America  and  uncivilized  countries. 
When  at  the  Restoration  the  debts  incurred  by  the  princes, 
the  Republic,  and  the  Empire  were  all  paid,  he  took  commis- 
sions on  loans,  on  contracts  for  public  works  and  enterprises 
of  all  kinds.  In  short,  he  committed  legal  robbery,  like 
many  another  carefully  masked  delinquent  behind  the  scenes 


THE   MARANAS.  281 

in  the  theatre  of  politics.  Such  thefts,  if  perpetrated  by  the 
light  of  a  street  lamp,  would  send  the  luckless  offender  to  the 
hulks  ;  but  there  is  a  virtue  in  the  glitter  of  chandeliers  and 
gilded  ceilings  that  absolves  the  crimes  committed  beneath 
them. 

Diard  forestalled  and  regrated  sugars;  he  sold  places  ;  to 
him  belongs  the  credit  of  the  invention  of  the  "  warming- 
pan  ;  "  he  installed  lay-figures  in  lucrative  posts  that  must  be 
held  for  a  time  to  secure  still  better  positions.  Then  he  fell 
to  meditating  on  bounties  ;  he  studied  the  loop-holes  of  the 
law,  and  carried  on  contraband  trades  against  which  no  pro- 
vision had  been  made.  This  traffic  in  high-places  may  be 
briefly  described  as  a  sort  of  commission  agency  ;  he  received 
"so  much  per  cent."  on  the  purchase  of  fifteen  votes  which 
passed  in  a  single  night  from  the  benches  on  the  left  to  the 
benches  on  the  right  of  the  legislative  chamber.  In  these 
days  such  things  are  neither  misdemeanors  nor  felony  ;  exploit- 
ing industry,  the  art  of  government,  financial  genius — these 
are  the  names  by  which  they  are  called. 

Public  opinion  put  Diard  in  the  pillory,  where  more  than 
one  clever  man  stood  already  to  keep  him  company;  there, 
indeed,  you  will  find  the  aristocracy  of  this  kind  of  talent — 
the  upper  chamber  of  civilized  rascality. 

Diard,  therefore,  was  no  commonplace  gambler,  no  vulgar 
spendthrift  who  ends  his  career,  in  melodramas,  as  a  beggar. 
Above  a  certain  social  altitude  that  kind  of  gambler  is  not  to 
be  found.  In  these  days  a  bold  scoundrel  of  this  kind  will 
die  gloriously  in  the  harness  of  vice  in  all  the  trappings  of 
success:  he  will  blow  out  his  brains  in  a  coach  and  six,  and 
all  that  has  been  intrusted  to  him  vanishes  with  him.  Diard's 
talent  determined  him  not  to  buy  remorse  too  cheaply,  and  he 
joined  this  privileged  class.  He  learned  all  the  springs  of 
government,  made  himself  acquainted  with  all  the  secrets  and 
the  weaknesses  of  men  in  office,  and  held  his  own  in  the 
fiery  furnace  into  which  he  had  cast  himself. 


282  THE  MARANAS. 

Mme.  Diard  knew  nothing  of  the  infernal  life  that  her 
husband  led.  She  was  well  content  to  be  neglected,  and  did 
not  ponder  overmuch  the  reasons  for  his  neglect.  Her  time 
was  too  well  filled.  She  devoted  all  the  money  that  she  had 
to  the  education  of  her  children ;  a  very  clever  tutor  was 
engaged  for  them,  besides  various  masters.  She  meant  to 
make  men  of  her  boys,  to  develop  in  them  the  faculty  of 
reasoning  clearly,  but  not  at  the  expense  of  their  imaginative 
powers.  Nothing  affected  her  now  save  through  her  children, 
and  her  own  colorless  life  depressed  her  no  longer.  Juan  and 
Francisco  were  for  her  what  children  are  for  a  time  for  many 
mothers — a  sort  of  expansion  of  her  own  existence.  Diard 
had  come  to  be  a  mere  accident  in  her  life.  Since  Diard  had 
ceased  to  be  a  father  and  the  head  of  the  family,  nothing 
bound  Juana  to  her  husband  any  longer,  save  a  regard  for 
appearances  demanded  by  social  conventions  ;  yet  she  brought 
up  her  children  to  respect  their  father,  shadowy  and  unreal  as 
that  fatherhood  had  become ;  indeed,  her  husband's  continual 
absence  from  home  helped  her  to  maintain  the  fiction  of  his 
high  character.  If  Diard  had  lived  in  the  house,  all  Juana's 
efforts  must  have  been  in  vain.  Her  children  were  too  quick 
and  bright  not  to  judge  their  father,  and  this  process  is  a 
moral  parricide. 

At  length,  however,  Juana's  indifference  changed  to  a  feel- 
ing of  dread.  She  felt  that  sooner  or  later  her  husband's 
manner  of  life  must  affect  the  children's  future.  Day  by  day 
that  old  presentiment  of  coming  evil  gathered  definiteness  and 
strength.  On  the  rare  occasions  when  Juana  saw  her  hus- 
band, she  would  glance  at  his  hollow  cheeks,  at  his  face 
grown  haggard  with  the  vigils  he  kept,  and  wrinkled  with 
violent  emotions;  and  Diard  almost  trembled  before  the  clear, 
penetrating  eyes.  At  such  times  her  husband's  assumed  gaiety 
alarmed  her  even  more  than  the  dark  look  that  his  face  wore 
in  repose,  when  for  a  moment  he  happened  to  forget  the  part 
that  he  was  playing.     He  feared  his  wife  as  the  criminal  fears 


THE  MARANAS.  283 

the  headsman.  Juana  saw  in  him  a  disgrace  on  her  children's 
name  ;  and  Diard  dreaded  her,  she  was  like  some  passionless 
Vengeance,  a  Justice  with  unchanging  brows,  with  the  arm 
that  should  one  day  strike  always  suspended  above  him. 

One  day,  about  fifteen  years  after  his  marriage,  Diard  found 
himself  without  resources.  He  owed  a  hundred  thousand 
crowns,  and  was  possessed  of  a  bare  hundred  thousand  francs. 
His  mansion  (all  that  he  possessed  beside  ready  money)  was 
mortgaged  beyond  its  value.  A  few  more  days,  and  the 
prestige  of  enormous  wealth  must  fade ;  and  when  those  days 
of  grace  had  expired,  no  helping  hand  would  be  stretched 
out,  no  purse  would  be  open  for  him.  Nothing  but  unlooked- 
for  luck  could  save  him  now  from  the  slough  into  which  he 
must  fall ;  and  he  would  but  sink  the  deeper  in  it,  men  would 
scorn  him  the  more  because  for  a  while  they  had  estimated 
him  at  more  than  his  just  value. 

Very  opportunely,  therefore,  he  learned  that  with  the 
beginning  of  the  season  diplomatists  and  foreigners  of  dis- 
tinction flocked  to  watering-places  in  the  Pyrenees,  that  play 
ran  high  at  these  resorts,  and  that  the  visitors  were  doubtless 
well  able  to  pay  their  losings.  So  he  determined  to  set  out  at 
once  for  the'  Pyrenees.  He  had  no  mind  to  leave  his  wife  in 
Paris ;  some  of  his  creditors  might  enlighten  her  as  to  his 
awkward  position,  and  he  wished  to  keep  it  secret,  so  he  took 
Juana  and  the  two  children.  He  would  not  allow  the  tutor 
to  go  with  them,  and  made  some  difficulties  about  Juana's 
maid,  who,  with  a  single  manservant,  composed  their  travel- 
ing suite.  His  tone  was  curt  and  peremptory;  his  energy 
seemed  to  have  returned  to  him.  This  hasty  journey  sent  a 
shiver  of  dread  to  Juana's  soul  ;  her  penetration  was  at  fault, 
she  could  not  imagine  the  why  and  wherefore  of  their  leaving 
Paris.  Her  husband  seemed  to  be  in  high  spirits  on  the  way ; 
and  during  the  time  spent  together  perforce  in  the  traveling 
carriage,  he  took  more  and  more  notice  of  the  children,  and 
was  more  kindly  to  the  children's  mother.     And  yet — every 


284  THE  MARANAS. 

day  brought  new  and  dark  forebodings  for  Juana,  the  fore- 
bodings of  a  mother's  heart.  These  inward  warnings,  even 
when  there  is  no  apparent  reason  for  them,  are  seldom  vain, 
and  the  veil  that  hides  the  future  grows  thin  for  a  mother's 
eyes. 

Diard  took  a  house,  not  large,  but  very  nicely  furnished, 
situated  in  one  of  the  quietest  parts  of  Bordeaux.  It  hap- 
pened to  be  a  corner  house  with  a  large  garden,  surrounded 
on  three  sides  by  streets,  and  on  the  fourth  by  the  wall  of  a 
neighboring  dwelling.  Diard  paid  the  rent  in  advance,  and 
installed  his  wife  and  family,  leaving  Juana  fifty  louis,  a  sum 
barely  sufficient  to  meet  the  housekeeping  expenses  for  three 
months.  Mme.  Diard  made  no  comment  on  this  unwonted 
niggardliness.  When  her  husband  told  her  that  he  was  about 
to  go  to  the  Baths,  and  that  she  was  to  remain  in  Bordeaux, 
she  made  up  her  mind  that  the  children  should  learn  the 
Spanish  and  Italian  languages  thoroughly,  and  that  they 
should  read  with  her  the  great  masterpieces  of  either  tongue. 

With  this  object  in  view,  Juana's  life  should  be  retired 
and  simple,  and  in  consequence  her  expenses  would  be 
few.  Her  own  woman  waited  upon  them ;  and,  to  simplify 
the  housekeeping,  she  arranged  on  the  morrow  of  Diard's 
departure  to  have  their  meals  sent  in  from  a  restaurant. 
Everything  was  provided  for  until  her  husband's  return,  and 
she  had  no  money  left.  Her  amusements  must  consist  in  occa- 
sional walks  with  the  children.  She  was  now  a  woman  of  thirty- 
three  ;  her  beauty  had  developed  to  its  fullest  extent,  she  was 
in  the  full  splendor  of  her  maturity.  Scarcely  had  she  ap- 
peared in  Bordeaux  before  people  talked  of  nothing  but  the 
lovely  Spanish  lady.  She  received  a  first  love-letter,  and 
thenceforth  confined  her  walks  to  her  own  garden. 

At  first  Diard  had  a  run  of  luck  at  the  Baths.  He  won 
three  hundred  thousand  francs  in  two  months ;  but  it  never 
occurred  to  him  to  send  any  money  to  his  wife,  he  meant  to 
Reep  as  large  a  sum  as  possible  by  him,  and  to  play  for  yet 


THE   MAR  ANAS.  285 

higher  stakes.  Towards  the  end  of  the  last  month  the  Marquis 
di  Montefiore  came  to  the  Baths,  preceded  by  a  reputation  for 
a  fine  figure  and  great  wealth,  for  the  match  that  he  had  made 
with  an  English  lady  of  family,  and  most  of  all  for  a  passion 
for  gambling.  Diard  waited  for  his  old  comrade  in  arms,  to 
add  the  spoils  to  his  winnings.  A  gambler  with  something 
like  four  hundred  thousand  francs  at  his  back  can  command 
most  things;  Diard  felt  confident  in  his  luck,  and  renewed 
his  acquaintance  with  Montefiore.  That  gentleman  received 
him  coldly,  but  they  played  together,  and  Diard  lost  every- 
thing. 

"Montefiore,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  the  sometime  quarter- 
master, after  a  turn  round  the  room  in  which  he  had  ruined 
himself,  "I  owe  you  a  hundred  thousand  francs;  but  I  have 
left  my  money  at  Bordeaux,  where  my  wife  is  staying." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Diard  had  notes  for  the  amount  in  his 
pockets  at  that  moment ;  but,  with  the  self-possession  of  a  man 
accustomed  to  take  in  all  the  possibilities  of  a  situation  at  a 
glance,  he  still  hoped  something  from  the  incalculable  chances 
of  the  gaming-table.  Montefiore  had  expressed  a  desire  to 
see  something  of  Bordeaux ;  and  if  Diard  were  to  settle  at 
once  with  him,  he  would  have  nothing  left,  and  could 
not  have  his  "  revenge."  A  "  revenge  "  will  sometimes  more 
than  make  good  all  previous  losses.  All  these  burning  hopes 
depended  on  the  answer  that  the  Marquis  might  give. 

"Let  it  stand,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Montefiore;  "we  will 
go  to  Bordeaux  together.  I  am  rich  enough  now  in  all  con- 
science;  why  should  I  take  an  old  comrade's  money?  " 

Three  days  later,  Diard  and  the  Italian  were  at  Bordeaux. 
Montefiore  offered  the  Provencal  his  revenge.  In  the  course 
of  an  evening,  which  Diard  began  by  paying  down  the  hun- 
dred thousand  francs,  he  lost  two  hundred  thousand  more 
upon  parole.  He  was  as  light-hearted  over  his  losses  as  if  he 
could  swim  in  gold.  It  was  eleven  o'clock,  and  a  glorious 
night,  surely  Montefiore  must  wish  to  breathe  the  fresh  air 


286  THE  MAR  ANAS. 

under  the  open  sky  and  to  take  a  walk  to  cool  down  a  little 
after  the  excitement  of  play ;  Diard  suggested  that  the  Italian 
should  accompany  him  to  his  house  and  take  a  cup  of  tea 
there  when  the  money  was  paid  over. 

"But  Mme.  Diard  !  "  queried  Monteflore. 

"  Pshaw  !  "  answered  the  Provencal. 

They  went  downstairs  together ;  but,  before  leaving  the 
house,  Diard  went  into  the  dining-room,  asked  for  a  glass  of 
water,  and  walked  about  the  room  as  he  waited  for  it.  In 
this  way  he  managed  to  secrete  a  tiny  steel  knife  with  a  handle 
of  mother-of-pearl,  such  as  is  used  at  dessert  for  fruit ;  the 
thing  had  not  yet  been  put  away  in  its  place. 

"Where  do  you  live?"  asked  Monteflore,  as  they  crossed 
the  court ;  "I  must  leave  word,  so  as  to  have  the  carriage 
sent  round  for  me." 

Diard  gave  minute  directions. 

"  Of  course,  I  am  perfectly  safe  as  long  as  I  am  with  you, 
you  see,"  said  Monteflore  in  a  low  voice,  as  he  took  Diard's 
arm-;  "but  if  I  came  back  by  myself,  and  some  scamp  were 
to  follow  me,  I  should  be  worth  killing." 

"  Then  have  you  money  about  you  ?  " 

"Oh  1  next  to  nothing,"  said  the  cautious  Italian,  "only 
my  winnings.  But  they  would  make  a  pretty  fortune  for  a 
penniless  rascal ;  he  might  take  brevet  rank  as  an  honest  man 
afterwards  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  that  I  know." 

Diard  took  the  Italian  into  a  deserted  street.  He  had 
noticed  the  gateway  of  a  single  house  in  it  at  the  end  of  a 
sort  of  avenue  of  trees,  and  that  there  were  high  dark  walls 
on  either  side.  Just  as  they  reached  the  end  of  this  road  he 
had  the  audacity  to  ask  his  friend,  in  soldierly  fashion,  to 
walk  on.  Monteflore  understood  Diard's  meaning,  and  turned 
to  go  with  him.  Scarcely  had  they  set  foot  in  the  shadow, 
when  Diard  sprang  like  a  tiger  upon  the  Marquis,  tripped 
him  up,  boldly  set  his  foot  on  his  victim's  throat,  and  plunged 
the  knife  again  and  again  into  his  heart,  till  the  blade  snapped 


THE   MARANAS.  287 

off  short  in  his  body.  Then  he  searched  Montefiore,  took  his 
money,  his  pocket-book,  and  everything  that-the  Marquis  had. 

But  though  Diard  had  set  about  his  work  in  a  frenzy  that 
left  him  perfectly  clear-headed,  and  completed  it  with  the 
deftness  of  a  pickpocket ;  though  he  had  taken  his  victim 
adroitly  by  surprise,  Montefiore  had  had  time  to  shriek 
"Murder!"  once  or  twice,  a  shrill,  far-reaching  cry  that 
must  have  sent  a  thrill  of  horror  through  many  sleepers,  and 
his  dying  groans  were  fearful  to  hear. 

Diard  did  not  know  that  even  as  they  turned  into  the 
avenue  a  crowd  of  people  returning  home  from  the  theatre 
had  reached  the  upper  end  of  the  street.  They  had  heard 
MontefioreVdying  cries,  though  the  Provencal  had  tried  to 
stifle  the  sounds,  never  relaxing  the  pressure  of  his  foot  upon 
the  murdered  man's  throat  until  at  last  they  ceased. 

The  high  walls  still  echoed  with  dying  groans  which  guided 
the  crowd  to  the  spot  whence  they  came.  The  sound  of 
many  feet  filled  the  avenue  and  rang  through  Diard's  brain. 
The  murderer  did  not  lose  his  head  ;  he  came  out  from  under 
the  trees,  and  walked  very  quietly  along  the  street,  as  if  he 
had  been  drawn  thither  by  curiosity  and  saw  that  he  had 
come  too'  late  to  be  of  any  use.  He  even  turned  to  make 
sure  of  the  distance  that  separated  him  from  the  new-comers, 
and  saw  them  all  rush  into  the  avenue,  save  one  man,  who  not 
unnaturally  stood  still  to  watch  Diard's  movements. 

"  There  he  lies  !  There  he  lies  !  "  shouted  voices  from  the 
avenue.  They  had  caught  sight  of  Montefiore's  dead  body  in 
front  of  the  great  house.  The  gateway  was  shut  fast,  and 
after  diligent  search  they  could  not  find  the  murderer  in  the 
alley. 

As  soon  as  he  heard  the  shout,  Diard  knew  that  he  had  got 
the  start ;  he  seemed  to  have  the  strength  of  a  lion  in  him 
and  the  fleetness  of  a  stag;  he  began  to  run,  nay,  he  flew. 
He  saw,  or  fancied  that  he  saw,  a  second  crowd  at  the  other 
end  of  the  road,  and  darted  down  a  side  street.     But  even  as 


288  THE   MAR  ANAS. 

he  fled,  windows  were  opened,  and  rows  of  heads  were  thrust 
out,  lights  and  •shouting  issued  from  every  door ;  to  Diard, 
running  for  dear  life,  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  rushing  through 
a  tumult  of  cries  and  swaying  lights.  As  he  fled  straight 
along  the  road  before  him,  his  legs  stood  him  in  such  good 
stead  that  he  left  the  crowd  behind ;  but  he  could  not  keep 
out  of  sight  of  the  windows,  nor  avoid  the  watchful  eyes  that 
traversed  the  length  and  breadth  of  a  street  faster  than  he 
could  fly. 

In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  soldiers,  gendarmes,  and  house- 
holders were  all  astir.  Some  in  their  zeal  had  gone  to  wake 
up  commissaries  of  police,  others  stood  by  the  dead  body. 
The  alarm  spread  out  into  the  suburbs  in  the  direction  of  the 
fugitive  (whom  it  followed  like  a  conflagration  from  street  to 
street)  and  into  the  heart  of  the  town,  where  it  reached  the 
authorities.  Diard  heard  as  in  a  dream  the  hurrying  feet,  the 
yells  of  a  whole  horror-stricken  city.  But  his  ideas  were  still 
clear ;  he  still  preserved  his  presence  of  mind,  and  he  rubbed 
his  hands  against  the  walls  as  he  ran. 

At  last  he  reached  the  garden  wall  of  his  own  house.  He 
thought  that  he  had  thrown  his  pursuers  off  the  scent.  The 
place  was  perfectly  silent  save  for  the  far-off  murmur  of  the 
city,  scarcely  louder  there  than  the  sound  of  the  sea.  He 
dipped  his  hands  into  a  runnel  of  clear  water  and  drank. 
Then,  looking  about  him,  he  saw  a  heap  of  loose  stones  by 
the  roadside,  and  hastened  to  bury  his  spoils  beneath  it,  act- 
ing on  some  dim  notion  such  as  crosses  a  criminal's  mind 
when  he  has  not  yet  found  a  consistent  tale  to  account  for 
his  actions,  and  hopes  to  establish  his  innocence  by  lack  of 
proofs  against  him.  When  this  was  accomplished,  he  tried  to 
look  serene  and  calm,  forced  a  smile,  and  knocked  gently  at 
his  own  door,  hoping  that  no  one  had  seen  him.  He  looked 
up  at  the  house  front  and  saw  a  light  in  his  wife's  windows. 
And  then  in  his  agitation  of  spirit  visions  of  Juana's  peace- 
ful life  rose  before  him  ;  he  saw  her  sitting  there  in  the  candle 


THE  MARANAS.  289 

light  with  her  children  on  either  side  of  her,  and  the  vision 
smote  his  brain  like  a  blow  from  a  hammer.  The  waiting- 
woman  opened  the  door,  Diard  entered,  and  hastily  shut  it  to 
again.  He  dared  to  breathe  more  freely,  but  he  remembered 
that  he  was  covered  with  perspiration,  and  sent  the  maid  up 
to  Juana,  while  he  stayed  below  in  the  darkness.  He  wiped 
his  face  with  a  handkerchief  and  set  his  clothes  in  order,  as  a 
coxcomb  smooths  his  coat  before  calling  upon  a  pretty  woman  ; 
then  for  a  moment  he  stood  in  the  moonlight  examining  his 
hands;  he  passed  them  over  his  face,  and  with  unspeakable 
joy  found  that  there  was  no  trace  of  blood  upon  him,  doubt- 
less his  victim's  wounds  had  bled  internally. 

He  went  up  to  Juana'  sroom,  and  his  manner  was  as  quiet 
and  composed  as  if  he  had  come  home  after  the  theatre,  to 
sleep.  As  he  climbed  the  stairs,  he  could  think  over  his 
position,  and  summed  it  up  in  a  phrase— he  must  leave  the 
house  and  reach  the  harbor.  These  ideas  did  not  cross  his 
brain  in  words ;  he  saw  them  written  in  letters  of  fire  upon 
the  darkness.  Once  down  at  the  harbor,  he  could  lie  in 
hiding  during  the  day,  and  return  at  night  for  the  treasure  ; 
then  he  would  creep  with  it  like  a  rat  into  the  hold  of  some 
vessel,  and  leave  the  port,  no  one  suspecting  that  he  was  on 
board.  For  all  these  things  money  was  wanted  in  the  first 
place.  And  he  had  nothing.  The  waiting-woman  came  with 
a  light. 

"  Felicie,"  he  said,  "do  you  not  hear  that  noise?  people 
are  shouting  in  the  street.  Go  and  find  out  what  it  is  and  let 
me  know " 

His  wife  in  her  white  dressing-gown  was  sitting  at  a  table, 
reading  Cervantes  in  Spanish  with  Francisco  and  Juan  ;  the 
two  children's  eyes  followed  the  text  while  their  mother  read 
aloud.  All  three  of  them  stopped  and  looked  up  at  Diard, 
who  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  surprised  perhaps  by 
the  surroundings,  the  peaceful  scene,  the  fair  faces  of  the 
woman  and  the  children  in  the  softly-lit  room.  It  was  like  a 
19 


290  THE  MARANAS. 

living  picture  of  a  Madonna  with  her  son  and  the  little  Saint 
John  on  either  side. 

"  Juana,  I  have  something  to  say  to  you." 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  she  asked.  In  her  husband's  wan  and  sallow 
face  she  read  the  news  of  this  calamity  that  she  had  expected 
daily  ;  it  had  come  at  last. 

"  Nothing,  but  I  should  like  to  speak  to  you — to  you,  quite 
alone,"  and  he  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  two  little  boys. 

"  Go  to  your  room,  my  darlings,  and  go  to  bed,"  said  Juana. 
"  Say  your  prayers  without  me." 

The  two  boys  went  away  in  silence,  with  the  un inquisitive 
obedience  of  children  who  have  been  well  brought  up. 

"Dear  Juana,"  Diard  began  in  coaxing  tones,  "I  left  you 
very  little  money,  and  I  am  very  sorry  for  it  now.  Listen, 
since  I  relieved  you  of  the  cares  of  your  household  by  giving 
you  an  allowance,  perhaps  you  may  have  saved  a  little  money, 
as  all  women  do?" 

"No,"  answered  Juana,  "I  have  nothing.  You  did  not 
allow  anything  for  the  expenses  of  the  children's  education. 
I  am  not  reproaching  you  at  all,  dear;  I  only  remind  you 
that  you  forgot  about  it,  to  explain  how  it  is  that  I  have  no 
money.  All  that  you  gave  me  I  spent  on  lessons  and  mas- 
ters  " 

"  That  will  do  !  "  Diard  broke  in.  "  Holy  thunder  !  time 
is  precious.     Have  you  no  jewels?" 

"You  know  quite  well  that  I  never  wear  them." 

"Then  there  is  not  a  sou  in  the  house  !  "  cried  Diard,  like 
a  man  bereft  of  his  senses. 

"Why  do  you  cry  out?"  she  asked. 

"  Juana,"  he  began,  "  I  have  just  killed  a  man  !  " 

Juana  rushed  to  the  children's  room,  and  returned,  shutting 
all  the  doors  after  her. 

"  Your  sons  must  not  hear  a  word  of  this,"  she  said  ;  "  but 
whom  can  you  have  fought  with?" 

"  Montefiore,"  he  answered. 


THE  MAR  ANAS.  291 

"Ah!  "  she  said,  and  a  sigh  broke  from  her;  "he  is  the 
one  man  whom  you  had  a  right  to  kill " 

"  There  were  plenty  of  reasons  why  he  should  die  by  my 
hand.  But  let  us  lose  no  time.  Money,  I  want  money,  in 
God's  narne  !  They  may  be  on  my  track.  We  did  not  fight, 
Juana,  I — I  killed  him." 

"Killed  him  !  "  she  cried.     "But  how ?" 

"Why,  how  does  one  kill  a  man?  He  had  robbed  me 
of  all  I  had  at  play;  and  I  have  taken  it  back  again.  Juana, 
since  we  have  no  money,  you  might  go  now,  while  everything 
is  quiet,  and  look  for  my  money  under  the  heap  of  stones  at 
the  end  of  the  road ;  you  know  the  place." 

"  Then,"  said  Juana,  "  you  have  robbed  him." 

"What  business  is  it  of  yours?  Fly  I  must,  mustn't  I? 
Have  you  any  money? They  are  after  me!" 

"Who?" 

"The  authorities.' 

Juana  left  the  room,  and  came  back  suddenly. 

"Here,"  she  cried,  holding  out  a  trinket,  but  standing  at 
a  distance  from  him;  this  is  Dona  Lagounia's  cross.  There 
are  four  rubies  in  it,  and  the  stones  are  very  valuable ;  so  I 
have  been  told.     Be  quick,  fly,  fly why  don't  you  go  ?  " 

"  Felicie  has  not  come  back,"  he  said  in  dull  amazement. 
"  Can  they  have  arrested  her?  " 

Juana  dropped  the  cross  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  and 
sprang  towards  the  windows  that  looked  out  upon  the  street. 
Outside  in  the  moonlight  she  saw  a  row  of  soldiers  taking  their 
places  in  absolute  silence  along  the  wall.  She  came  back 
again  ;  to  all  appearance  she  was  perfectly  calm. 

"  You  have  not  a  minute  to  lose,"  she  said  to  her  husband  ; 
"  you  must  escape  through  the  garden.  Here  is  the  key  of 
the  little  door." 

A  last  counsel  of  prudence  led  her,  however,  to  give  a 
glance  over  the  garden.  In  the  shadows  under  the  trees  she 
saw  the  silvery  gleam  of  the  metal  rims  of  the  gendarmes' 


292  THE  MAR  ANAS. 

caps.  She  even  heard  a  vague  murmur  of  a  not  far-distant 
crowd ;  sentinels  were  keeping  back  the  people  gathered 
together  by  curiosity  at  the  further  ends  of  the  streets  by 
which  the  house  was  approached. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Diard  had  been  seen  from  the  windows 
of  the  houses ;  the  maidservant  had  been  frightened,  and 
afterwards  arrested;  and,  acting  on  this  information,  the  mil- 
itary and  the  crowd  had  soon  blocked  the  ends  of  the  streets 
that  lay  on  two  sides  of  the  house.  A  dozen  gendarmes, 
coming  off  duty  at  the  theatres,  were  posted  outside ;  others 
had  climbed  the  wall,  and  were  searching  the  garden,  a  pro- 
ceeding authorized  by  the  serious  nature  of  the  crime. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Juana,  "  it  is  too  late.  The  whole  town 
is  aroused." 

Diard  rushed  from  window  to  window,  with  the  wild  reck- 
lessness of  a  bird  that  dashes  frantically  against  every  pane. 
Juana  stood  absorbed  in  her  thoughts. 

"  Where  can  I  hide  ?  "  he  asked. 

He  looked  at  the  chimney,  and  Juana  stared  at  the  two 
empty  chairs.  To  her  it  seemed  only  a  moment  since  her 
children  were  sitting  there.  Just  at  that  moment  the  gate 
opened,  and  the  courtyard  echoed  with  the  sound  of  many 
footsteps. 

"  Juana,  dear  Juana,  for  pity's  sake,  tell  me  what  to  do." 

"  I  will  tell  you,"  she  said  ;   "  I  will  save  you." 

"  Ah  !  you  will  be  my  good  angel !  " 

Again  Juana  returned  with  one  of  Diard's  pistols;  she  held 
it  out  to  him,  and  turned  her  head  away.  Diard  did  not  take 
it.  Juana  heard  sounds  from  the  courtyard  ;  they  had  brought 
in  the  dead  body  of  the  Marquis  to  confront  the  murderer. 
She  came  away  from  the  window  and  looked  at  Diard  ;  he  was 
white  and  haggard  ;  his  strength  failed  him  ;  he  made  as  if  he 
would  sink  into  a  chair. 

"For  your  children's  sake,"  she  said,  thrusting  the  weapon 
into  his  hands. 


IS    THAT     M.     DIARD- 


THE   MAR  ANAS.  293 

"  But,  my  dear  Juana,  my  little  Juana,  do  you  really  be- 
lieve that ?     Juana,  is  there  such  need  of  haste  ? I 

would  like  to  kiss  you  before " 

The  gendarmes  were  on  the  stairs.  Then  Juana  took  up 
the  pistol,  held  it  at  Diard's  head  ;  with  a  firm  grasp  on  his 
throat  she  held  him  tightly  in  spite  of  his  cries,  fired,  and  let 
the  weapon  fall  to  the- ground. 

The  door  was  suddenly  flung  open  at  that  moment.  The 
public  prosecutor,  followed  by  a  magistrate  and  his  clerk,  a 
doctor,  and  the  gendarmes,  all  the  instruments  of  man's 
justice,  appeared  upon  the  scene. 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Is  that  M.  Diard?"  answered  the  public  prosecutor, 
pointing  to  the  body  lying  bent  double  upon  the  floor. 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"  Your  dress  is  covered  with  blood,  madame " 

"  Do  you  not  understand  how  it  is?  "  asked  Juana.  • 

She  went  over  to  the  little  table  and  sat  down  there,  and 
took  up  the  volume  of  Cervantes ;  her  face  was  colorless  ;  she 
strove  to  control  her  inward  nervous  agitation. 

"  Leave  the  room,"  said  the  public  prosecutor  to  the  gen- 
darmes. He  made  a  sign  to  the  magistrate  and  the  doctor, 
and  they  remained. 

"  Madame,  under  the  circumstances,  we  can  only  con- 
gratulate you  on  your  husband's  death.  If  he  was  carried 
away  by  passion,  at  any  rate  he  has  died  like  a  soldier,  and  it 
is  vain  for  justice  to  pursue  him  now.  Yet  little  as  we  may 
desire  to  intrude  upon  you  at  such  a  time,  the  law  obliges  us 
to  inquire  into  a  death  by  violence.  Permit  us  to  do  our 
duty." 

"May  I  change  my  dress?"  she  asked,  laying  down  the 
volume. 

"  Yes,  madame,  but  you  must  bring  it  here.  The  doctor 
will  doubtless  require  it " 

"It  would  be  too  painful  to  Mme.  Diard  to  be  present 


294  THE  MARANAS. 

while  I  go  through  my  task,"  said  the  doctor,  understanding 
the  public  prosecutor's  suspicions.  "  Will  you  permit  her, 
gentlemen,  to  remain  in  the  adjoining  room?" 

The  two  functionaries  approved  the  kindly  doctor's  sug- 
gestion, and  Felicie  went  to  her  mistress.  Then  the  magis- 
trate and  the  public  prosecutor  spoke  together  for  a  while  in 
a  low  voice.  It  is  the  unhappy  lot  of  administrators  of  justice 
to  be  in  duty  bound  to  suspect  everybody  and  everything. 
By  dint  of  imagining  evil  motives,  and  every  possible  com- 
bination that  they  may  bring  about,  so  as  to  discover  the 
truth  that  lurks  beneath  the  most  inconsistent  actions,  it  is 
impossible  but  that  their  dreadful  office  should  in  course  of 
time  dry  up  the  source  of  the  generous  impulses  to  which 
they  may  never  yield.  If  the  sensibilities  of  the  surgeon  who 
explores  the  mysteries  of  the  body  are  blunted  by  degrees, 
what  becomes  of  the  inner  sensibility  of  the  judge  who  is 
compelled  to  probe  the  intricate  recesses  of  the  human  con- 
science ?  Magistrates  are  the  first  victims  of  their  profession  ; 
their  progress  is  one  perpetual  mourning  for  their  lost  illu- 
sions, and  the  crimes  that  hang  so  heavily  about  the  necks 
of  criminals  weigh  no  less  upon  their  judges.  An  old  man 
seated  in  the  tribunal  of  justice  is  sublime  ;  but  do  we  not 
shudder  to  see  a  young  face  there  ?  In  this  case  the  magis- 
trate was  a  young  man,  and  it  was  his  duty  to  say  to  the 
public  prosecutor,  "  Was  the  woman  her  husband's  accomplice, 
do  you  think  ?  Must  we  take  proceedings  ?  Ought  she,  in 
your  opinion,  to  be  examined  ?  " 

By  way  of  reply,  the  public  prosecutor  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders ;  apparently  it  was  a  matter  of  indifference. 

"  Montefiore  and  Diard,"  he  remarked,  "  were  a  pair  of 
notorious  scamps.  The  servant-girl  knew  nothing  about  the 
crime.     We  need  not  go  any  further." 

The  doctor  was  making  his  examination  of  Diard's  body, 
and  dictating  his  report  to  the  clerk.  Suddenly  he  rushed 
into  Juana's  room. 


THE  MARANAS.  295 


Madame- 


Juana,  who  had  changed  her  blood-stained  dress,  confronted 
the  doctor. 

"  You  shot  your  husband,  did  you  not  ?  "  he  asked,  bend- 
ing to  say  the  words  in  her  ear. 

'-  Yes,  monsieur,"  the  Spaniard  answered. 
"  And  from  circumstantial  evidence"  (the  doctor  went  on 
dictating)  "  we  conclude  that  the  said  Diard  has  taken  his  life  • 
by  his  own  act.     Have  you  finished?"   he  asked  the  clerk 
after  a  pause. 

"  Yes,"  answered  the  scribe. 

The  doctor  put  his  signature  to  the  document.  Juana 
glanced  at  him,  and  could  scarcely  keep  back  the  tears  that, 
for  a  moment,  filled  her  eyes. 

"  Gentlemen,"  she  said,  and  she  turned- to  the  public  prose- 
cutor, "  I  am  a  stranger,  a  Spaniard.  I  do  not  know  the  law. 
I  know  no  one  in  Bordeaux.  I  entreat  you  to  do  me  this  kind- 
ness, will  you  procure  me  a  passport  for  Spain  ?  " 

"  One  moment  !  "  exclaimed  the  magistrate.  "  Madame, 
what  has  become  of  the  sum  of  money  that  was  stolen  from 
the  Marquis  di  Montefiore  ?  " 

"  M.  Diard  said  something  about  a  heap  of  stones  beneath 
which  he  had  hidden  it,"  she  answered. 
«  Where?" 
"  In  the  street." 

The  two  functionaries  exchanged  glances.  Juana's  invol- 
untary start  was  sublime.     She  appealed  to  the  doctor. 

"  Can  they  suspect  me?"  she  said  in  his  ear  ;  "  suspect  me 
of  some  villainy  ?  The  heap  of  stones  is  sure  to  be  some- 
where at  the  end  of  the  garden.  Go  yourself,  I  beg  of  you, 
and  look  for  it  and  find  the  money." 

The  doctor  went,  accompanied  by  the  magistrate,  and  found 
Montefiore's  pocket-book. 

Two  days  later  Juana  sold  her  golden  cross  to  meet  the 
expenses  of  the  journey.     As  she  went  with  her  two  children 


296  THE  MAR  ANAS. 

to  the  diligence  in  which  they  were  about  to  travel  to  the 
Spanish  frontier,  some  one  called  her  name  in  the  street.  It 
was  her  dying  mother,  who  was  being  taken  to  the  hospital ; 
she  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  her  daughter  through  a  slit  in  the 
curtains  of  the  stretcher  on  which  she  lay.  Juana  bade  them 
carry  the  stretcher  into  a  gateway,  and  there  for  the  last  time 
the  mother  and  daughter  met.  Low  as  their  voices  were 
while  they  spoke  together,  Juan  overheard  these  words  of  fare- 
well— 

"  Mother,  die  in  peace  ;  I  have  suffered  for  you  all." 

Paris,  November,  1832. 


THE  EXECUTIONER. 

{El  Verdugo.) 
To  Martinez  de  la  Rosa. 

Midnight  had  just  sounded  from  the  belfry  tower  of  the 
little  town  of  Menda.  A  young  French  officer,  leaning  over 
the  parapet  of  the  long  terrace  at  the  further  end  of  the  castle 
gardens,  seemed  to  be  unusually  absorbed  in  deep  thought 
for  one  who  led  the  reckless  life  of  a  soldier ;  but  it  must  be 
admitted  that  never  was  the  hour,  the  scene,  and  the  night 
more  favorable  to  meditation. 

The  blue  dome  of  the  cloudless  sky  of  Spain  was  overhead ; 
he  was  looking  out  over  the  coy  windings  of  a  lovely  valley 
lit  by  the  uncertain  starlight  and  the  soft  radiance  of  the 
moon.  The  officer,  leaning  against  an  orange  tree  in  blossom, 
could  also  see,  a  hundred  feet  below  him,  the  town  of  Menda, 
which  seemed  to  nestle  for  shelter  from  the  north  wind  at 
the  foot  of  the  crags  on  which  the  castle  itself  was  built.  He 
turned  his  head  and  caught  sight  of  the  sea  ;  the  moonlit 
waves  made  a  broad  frame  of  silver  for  the  landscape. 

There  were  lights  in  the  castle  windows.  The  mirth  and 
movement  of  a  ball,  the  sounds  of  the  violins,  the  laughter  of 
the  officers  and  their  partners  in  the  dance  were  borne  to- 
wards him  and  blended  with  the  far-off  murmur  of  the  waves. 
The  cool  night  had  a  certain  bracing  effect  upon  his  frame, 
wearied  as  he  had  been  by  the  heat  of  the  day.  He  seemed 
to  bathe  in  the  air,  made  fragrant  by  the  strong,  sweet  scent 
of  flowers  and  of  aromatic  trees  in  the  gardens. 

The  castle  of  Menda  belonged  to  a  Spanish  grandee,  who 
was  living  in  it  at  that  time  with  his  family.     All  through  the 

(297) 


298  THE  EXECUTIONER. 

evening  the  oldest  daughter  of  the  house  had  watched  the 
officer  with  such  a  wistful  interest  that  the  Spanish  lady's 
compassionate  eyes  might  well  have  set  the  young  Frenchman 
dreaming.  Clara  was  beautiful ;  and  although  she  had  three 
brothers  and  a  sister,  the  broad  lands  of  the  Marques  de 
Legafies  appeared  to  be  sufficient  warrant  for  Victor  Mar- 
chand's/  belief  that  the  young  lady  would  have  a  splendid 
dowry.  |  But  how  could  he  dare  to  imagine  that  the  most 
fanatical/believer  in  blue  blood  in  all  Spain  would  give  his 
daughter  to  the  son  of  a  grocer  in  Paris?  Moreover,  the 
French  were  hated.  It  was  because  the  Marquis  had  been 
suspected  of  an  attempt  to  raise  the  country  in  favor  of 
Ferdinand  VII.  that  General  G ,  who  governed  the  pro- 
vince, had  stationed  Victor  Marchand's  battalion  in  the  little 
town  of  Menda  to  overawe  the  neighboring  districts  which 
received  the  Marques  de  Legafies'  word  as  law.  A  recent 
despatch  from  Marshal  Ney  had  given  ground  for  fear  that  the 
English  might  ere  long  effect  a  landing  on  the  coast,  and  had 
indicated  the  Marquis  as  being  in  correspondence  with  the 
Cabinet  in  London. 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  welcome  with  which  the  Spaniards 
had  received  Victor  Marchand  and  his  soldiers,  that  officer 
was  always  on  his  guard.  As  he  went  towards  the  terrace, 
where  he  had  just  surveyed  the  town  and  the  districts  confided 
to  his  charge,  he  had  been  asking  himself  what  construction 
he  ought  to  put  upon  the  friendliness  which  the  Marquis  had 
invariably  shown  him,  and  how  to  reconcile  the  apparent 
tranquillity  of  the  country  with  his  general's  uneasiness.'  But 
a  moment  later  these  thoughts  were  driven  from  his  mind  by 
the  instinct  of  caution  and  very  legitimate  curiosity. AJIt  had 
just  struck  him  that  there  was  a  very  fair  number  of  lights  in 
the  town  below.  Although  it  was  the  Feast  of  Saint  James, 
he  himself  had  issued  orders  that  very  morning  that  all  lights 
must  be  put  out  in  the  town  at  the  hour  prescribed  by  military 
regulations.     The   castle   alone   had   been   excepted    in  this 


THE   EXECUTIONER.  299 

order.  Plainly  here  and  there  he  saw  the  gleam  of  bayonets, 
where  his  own  men  were  at  their  accustomed  posts  ;  but  in 
the  town  there  was  a  solemn  silence,  and  not  a  sign  that  the 
Spaniards  had  given  themselves  up  to  the  intoxication  of  a 
festival.  He  tried  vainly  for  a  while  to  explain  this  breach  of 
the  regulations  on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants;  the  mystery 
seemed  but  so  much  the  more  obscure  because  he  had  left  in- 
structions with  some  of  his  officers  to  do  police  duty  that 
night,  and  make  the  rounds  of  the  town. 

With  the  impetuosity  of  youth,  he  was  about  to  spring 
through  a  gap  in  the  wall  preparatory  to  a  rapid  scramble 
down  the  rocks,  thinking  to  reach  a  small  guard-house  at  the 
nearest  entrance  into  the  town  more  quickly  than  by  the 
beaten  track,  when  a  faint  sound  stopped  him.  He  fancied 
that  he  could  hear  the  light  footstep  of  a  woman  along  the 
graveled  garden  walk.  He  turned  his  head  and  saw  no  one  ;  \J 
for  one  moment  his  eyes  were  dazzled  by  the  wonderful 
brightness  of  the  sea,  the  next  he  saw  a  sight  so  ominous  that 
he  stood  stock-still  with  amazement,  thinking  that  his  senses 
must  be  deceiving  him.  The  white  moonbeams  lighted  the 
horizon,  so  that  he  could  distinguish  the  sails  of  ships  still  a 
considerable  distance  out  at  sea.  A  shudder  ran  through 
him ;  he  tried  to  persuade  himself  that  this  was  some  optical 
delusion  brought  about  by  chance  effects  of  moonlight  on  the 
waves  ;  and  even  as  he  made  the  attempt,  a  hoarse  voice 
called  to  him  by  name.  The  officer  glanced  at  the  gap  in  the 
wall ;  saw  a  soldier's  head  slowly  emerge  from  it,  and  knew 
the  grenadier  whom  he  had  ordered  to  accompany  him  to  the 
castle. 

"  Is  that  you,  commandant  ?  " 

"Yes.  What  is  it?"  returned  the  young  officer  in  a  low 
voice.     A  kind  of  presentiment  warned  him  to  act  cautiously. 

"  Those  beggars  down  there  are  creeping  about  like  worms ; 
and,  by  your  leave,  I  came  as  quickly  as  I  could  to  report  my 
little  reconnoitring  expedition." 


300  THE  EXECUTIONER. 

"  Go  on,"  answered  Victor  Marchand. 

'*  I  have  just  been  following  a  man  from  the  castle  who 
came  round  this  way  with  a  lantern  in  his  hand.  A  lantern 
is  a  suspicious  matter  with  a  vengeance  !  I  don't  imagine 
that  there  was  any  need  for  that  good  Christian  to  be  lighting 
tapers  at  this  time  of  night. V Says  I  to  myself,  'They  mean 
to  gobble  us  up !  '  and  I  set  myself  to  dogging  his  heels ; 
and  that  is  how  I  found  out  that  there  is  a  pile  of  faggots,  sir, 
two  or  three  steps  away  from  here." 

Suddenly  a  dreadful  shriek  rang  through  the  town  below, 
and  cut  the  man  short.  A  light  flashed1  in  the  commandant's 
face,  and  the  poor  grenadier  dropped  down  with  a  bullet 
through  his  head.  Ten  paces  away  a  bonfire  flared  up  like  a 
conflagration.  The  sounds  of  music  and  laughter  ceased  all 
at  once  in  the  ballroom ;  the  silence  of  death,  broken  only 
by  groans,  succeeded  to  the  rhythmical  murmur  of  the  festival. 
Then  the  roar  of  cannon  sounded  from  across  the  white  plain 
of  the  sea. 

A  cold  sweat  broke  out  on  the  young  officer's  forehead. 
He  had  left  his  sword  behind.  He  knew  that  his  men  had 
been  murdered,  and  that  the  English  were  about  to  land.  He 
knew  that  if  he  lived  he  would  be  dishonored  ;  he  saw  him- 
self summoned  before  a  court-martial.  For  a  moment  his 
eyes  measured  the  depth  of  the  valley  ;  the  next,  just  as  he 
was  about  to  spring  down,  Clara's  hand  caught  his. 

"  Fly  !  "  she  cried.  "  My  brothers  are  coming  after  me  to 
kill  you.  Down  yonder  at  the  foot  of  the  cliff  you  will  find 
Juanito's  Andalusian.     Go  !  " 

She  thrust  him  away.  The  young  man  gazed  at  her  in  dull 
bewilderment ;  but  obeying  the  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
which  never  deserts  even  the  bravest,  he  rushed  across  the 
park  in  the  direction  pointed  out  to  him,  springing  from  rock 
to  rock  in  places  unknown  to  any  save  the  goats.  He  heard 
Clara  calling  to  her  brothers  to  pursue  him  ;  he  heard  the  foot- 
steps of  the  murderers  ;  again  and  again  he  heard  their  balls 


THE   EXECUTIONER.  301 

whistling  about  his  ears ;  but  he  reached  the  foot  of  the  cliff, 
found  the  horse,  mounted,  and  fled  with  lightning  speed. 

A  few  hours  later  the  young  officer  reached  General  G 's 

quarters,  and  found  him  at  dinner  with  the  staff. 

"I  put  my  life  in  your  hands!"  cried  the  haggard  and 
exhausted  commandant  of  Menda. 

He  sank  into  a  seat,  and  told  his  horrible  story.  It  was 
received  with  an  appalling  silence. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  you  are  more  to  be  pitied  than  to 
blame,"  the  terrible  general  said  at  last.  "You  are  not 
answerable  for  the  Spaniard's  crimes,  and,  unless  the  marshal 
decides  otherwise,  I  acquit  you." 

These  words  brought  but  cold  comfort  to  the  unfortunate 
officer. 

"  When  the  Emperor  comes  to  hear  about  it !  "  he  cried. 

"Oh,  he  will  be  for  having  you  shot,"  said  the  general, 
"  but  we  shall  see.  Now  we  will  say  no  more  about  this," 
he  added  severely,  "  except  to  plan  a  revenge  that  shall  strike 
a  salutary  terror  into  this  country,  where  they  carry  on  war 
like  savages." 

An  hour  later  a  whole  regiment,  a  detachment  of  cavalry, 
and  a  convoy  of  artillery  were  upon  the  road.  The  general 
and  Victor  marched  at  the  head  of  the  column.  The  soldiers 
had  been  told  of  the  fate  of  their  comrades,  and  their  rage 
knew  no  bounds.  The  distance  between  headquarters  and  the 
town  of  Menda  was  crossed  at  a  wellnigh  miraculous  speed. 
Whole  villages  by  the  way  were  found  to  be  under  arms  ;  every 
one  of  the  wretched  hamlets  was  surrounded  and  their  inhab- 
itants decimated. 
^  It  so  chanced  that  the  English  vessels  still  lay  out  at  sea, 
and  were  no  nearer  the  shore,  a  fact  inexplicable  until  it  was 
known  afterwards  that  they  were  artillery  transports  which 
had  outsailed  the  rest  of  the  fleet.  So  the  townsmen  of 
Menda,  left  without  the  assistance  on  which  they  had  reck- 
oned when  the  sails  of  the  English  appeared,  were  surrounded 


302  THE  EXECUTIONER. 

by  French  troops  almost  before  they  had  had  time  to  strike  a 
blow.  This  struck  such  terror  into  them  that  they  offered  to 
surrender  at  discretion.  An  impulse  of  devotion,  no  isolated 
instance  in  the  history  of  the  Peninsula,  led  the  actual  slayers 
of  the  French  to  offer  to  give  themselves  up ;  seeking  in  this 
way  to  save  the  town,  for  from  the  general's  reputation  for 
cruelty  it  was  feared  that  he  would  give  Menda  over  to  the 
flames,  and  put  the  whole  population  to  the  sword.     General 

G took  their  offer,   stipulating   that    every    soul    in    the 

castle  from  the  lowest  servant  to  the  Marquis  should  likewise 
be  given  up  to  him.  These  terms  being- accepted,  the  general 
promised  to  spare  the  lives  of  the  rest  of  the  townsmen,  and 
to  prohibit  his  soldiers  from  pillaging  or  setting  fire  to  the 
town.  A  heavy  contribution  was  levied,  and  the  wealthiest 
inhabitants  were  taken  as  hostages  to  guarantee  payment 
within  twenty-four  hours. 

The  general  took  every  necessary  precaution  for  the' safety 
of  his  troops,  provided  for  the  defense  of  the  place,  and  re- 
fused to  billet  his  men  in  the  houses  of  the  town.  After  they 
had  bivouacked,  he  went  up  to  the  castle  and  entered  it  as  a 
conqueror.  The  whole  family  of  Leganes  and  their  household 
were  gagged,  shut  up  in  the  great  ballroom,  and  closely 
watched.  From  the  windows  it  was  easy  to  see  the  whole 
length  of  the  terrace  above  the  town. 

The  staff  was  established  in  an  adjoining  gallery,  where  the 
general  forthwith  held  a  council  as  to  the  best  means  of  pre- 
venting the  landing  of  the  English.  An  aide-de-camp  was 
despatched  to  Marshal  Ney,  orders  were  issued  to  plant  bat- 
teries along  the  coast,  and  then  the  general  and  his  staff 
turned  their  attention  to  their  prisoners.  The  two  hundred 
Spaniards  given  up  by  the  townsfolk  were  shot  down  then  and 
there  upon  the  terrace.  And  after  this  military  execution, 
the  general  gave  orders  to  erect  gibbets  to  the  number  of  the 
prisoners  in  the  ballroom  in  the  same  place,  and  to  send  for 
the  hangman  out  of  the  town.     Victor  took  advantage  of  the 


THE  EXECUTIONER.  303 

interval  before  dinner  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  prisoners.  He 
soon  came  back  to  the  general. 

"  I  am  come  in  haste,"  he  faltered  out,  "to  ask  a  favor." 

"  You!"  exclaimed  the  general,  with  bitter  irony  in  his 
tones. 

"Alas!"  answered  Victor,  "it  is  a  sorry  favor.  The 
Marquis  has  seen  them  erecting  the  gallows,  and  hopes  that 
you  will  commute  the  punishment  for  his  family  \  he  entreats 
you  to  have  the  nobles  beheaded." 

"Granted,"  said  the  general. 

"  He  further  asks  that  they  maybe  allowed  the  consolations 
of  religion,  and  that  they  may  be  unbound  \  they  give  you 
their  word  that  they  will  not  attempt  to  escape." 

"That  I  permit,"  said  the  general,  "  but  you  are  answerable 
for  them." 

"The  old  noble  offers  you  all  that  he  has  if  you  will  pardon 
his  youngest  son." 

"  Really  !  "  cried  the  commander.  "  His  property  is  for- 
feited already  to  King  Joseph."  He  paused  ;  a  contemptuous 
thought  set  wrinkles  in  his  forehead,  as  he  added,  "  I  will  do 
better  than  they  ask.  I  understand  what  he  means  by  that 
last  request  of  his.  Very  good.  Let  him  hand  down  his 
name  to  posterity;  but  whenever  it  is  mentioned,  all  Spain 
shall  remember  his  treason  and  its  punishment  !  I  will  give 
the  fortune  and  his  life  to  any  one  of  the  sons  who  will  do  the 
executioner's  office.  There,  don't  talk  any  more  about  them 
to  me."  -J 

Dinner  was  ready.  The  officers  sat  down  to  satisfy  an  ap- 
petite whetted  by  hunger.  Only  one  among  them  was  absent 
from  the  table — that  one  was  Victor  Marchand.  After  long 
hesitation,  he  went  to  the  ballroom,  and  heard  the  last  sighs 
of  the  proud  house  of  Leganes.  He  looked  sadly  at  the 
scene  before  him.  Only  last  night,  in  this  very  room,  he  had 
seen  their  faces  whirl  past  him  in  the  waltz,  and  he  shud- 
dered to  think  that  those  girlish  heads  with  those  of  the  three 


304  THE  EXECUTIONER. 

young  brothers  must  fall  in  a  brief  space  by  the  executioner's 
sword.  yThere  sat  the  father  and  mother,  their  three  sons 
and  two  daughters,  perfectly  motionless,  bound  to  their  gilded 
chairs.  Eight  serving-men  stood  with  their  hands  tied  behind 
them.  These  fifteen  prisoners,  under  sentence  of  death,  ex- 
changed grave  glances ;  it  was  difficult  to  read  the  thoughts 
that  filled  them  from  their  eyes,  but  profound  resignation  and 
regret  that  their  enterprise  should  have  failed  so  completely 
was  written  on  more  than  one  brow. 

The  impassive  soldiers  who  guarded  them  respected  the 
grief  of  their  bitter  enemies.  A  gleam  pf  curiosity  lighted 
up  all  faces  when  Victor  came  in.  He  gave  orders  that  the  con- 
demned prisoners  should  be  unbound,  and  himself  unfastened 
the  cords  that  held  Clara  a  prisoner.  She  smiled  mournfully 
at  him.  The  officer  could  not  refrain  from  lightly  touching 
the  young  girl's  arm ;  he  could  not  help  admiring  her  dark 
hair,  her  slender  waist.  She  was  a  true  daughter  of  Spain,  with 
a  Spanish  complexion,  a  Spaniard's  eyes,  blacker  than  the 
raven's  wing  beneath  their  long  curving  lashes. 

"  Did  you  succeed  ?  "  she  asked,  with  a  mournful  smile,  in 
which  a  certain  girlish  charm  still  lingered. 

Victor  could  not  repress  a  groan.  He  looked  from  the 
faces  of  the  three  brothers  to  Clara,  and  again  at  the  three 
young  Spaniards.  The  first,  the  oldest  of  the  family,  was  a 
man  of  thirty.  He  was  short,  and  somewhat  ill  made ;  he 
looked  haughty  and  proud,  but  a  certain  distinction  was  not 
lacking  in  his  bearing,  and  he  was  apparently  no  stranger  to 
the  delicacy  of  feeling  for  which  in  olden  times  the  chivalry 
of  Spain  was  famous.  His  name  was  Juanito.  The  second 
son,  Felipe,  was  about  twenty  years  of  age;  he  was  like  his 
sister  Clara  ;  and  the  youngest  was  a  child  of  eight.  In  the 
features  of  little  Manuel  a  painter  would  have  discerned  some- 
thing of  that  Roman  steadfastness  which  David  has  given  to  the 
children's  faces  in  his  Republican  genre  pictures.  The  old 
Marquis,  with  his  white  hair,  might  have  come  down  from 


THE   EXECUTIONER.  305 

some  canvas  of  Murillo's.  Victor  threw  back  his  head  in 
despair  after  this  survey ;  how  should  one  of  these  accept  the 
general's  offer  !  nevertheless  he  ventured  to  intrust  it  to  Clara. 
A  shudder  ran  through  the  Spanish  girl,  but  she  recovered 
herself  almost  instantly,  and  knelt  before  her  father. 

"Father,"  she  said,  "bid  Juanito  swear  to  obey  the  com- 
mands that  you  shall  give  him,  and  we  shall  be  content." 

The  Marquesa  trembled  with  hope,  but  as  she  leaned  towards 
her  husband  and  learned  Clara's  hideous  secret  the  mother 
fainted  away.  Juanito  understood  it  all,  and  leaped  up  like  a 
caged  lion.  Victor  took  it  upon  himself  to  dismiss  the  sol- 
diers, after  receiving  an  assurance  of  entire  submission  from 
the  Marquis.  The  servants  were  led  away  and  given  over  to 
the  hangman  and  their  fate.  When  only  Victor  remained  on 
guard  in  the  room,  the  old  Marques  de  Legafies  rose  to  his  feet. 

"Juanito,"  he  said.  For  all  answer  Juanito  bowed  his 
head  in  a  way  that  meant  refusal ;  he  sank  down  into  his  chair, 
and  fixed  tearless  eyes  upon  his  father  and  mother  in  an  intol- 
erable gaze.  Clara  went  over  to  him  and  sat  on  his  knee ; 
she  put  her  arms  about  him,  and  pressed  kisses  on  his  eyelids, 
saying  gaily — 

"Dear  Juanito,  if  you  but  knew  how  sweet  death  at  your 
hands  will  be  to  me  !  I  shall  not  be  compelled  to  submit  to 
the  hateful  touch  of  the  hangman's  fingers.     You  will  snatch 

me  away  from  the  evils  to  come  and Dear,  kind  Juanito, 

you  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  my  belonging  to  any  one — 
well,  then  ?  " 

The  velvet  eyes  gave  Victor  a  burning  glance ;  she 
seemed  to  try  to  awaken  in  Juanito's  heart  his  hatred  for  the 
French. 

"Take  courage,"  said  his  brother  Felipe,  "or  our  well- 
nigh  royal  line  will  be  extinct." 

Suddenly    Clara   sprang   to  her   feet.      The    group   round 
Juanito  fell   back,  and  the  son  who  had   rebelled  with  such 
good  reason  was  confronted  with  his  aged  father. 
20 


306  THE  EXECUTIONER. 

"  Juanito,  I  command  you  !  "  said  the  Marquis  solemnly. 

The  yount  Count  gave  no  sign,  and  his  father  fell  on  his 
knees;  Clara,  Manuel,  and  Felipe  unconsciously  followed  his 
example,  stretching  out  suppliant  hands  to  him  who  must  save 
their  family  from  oblivion,  and  seeming  to  echo  their  father's 
words. 

"  Can  it  be  that  you  lack  the  fortitude  of  a  Spaniard  and 
true  sensibility,  my  son  ?  Do  you  mean  to  keep  me  on  my 
knees?  What  right  have  you  to  think  of  your  own  life  and 
of  your  own  sufferings?  Is  this  my  son,  madame  ?  "  the  old 
Marquis  added,  turning  to  his  wife. 

"He  will  consent  to  it,"  cried  the  mother  in  agony  of  soul. 
She  had  seen  a  slight  contraction  of  Juanito's  brows  which 
she,  his  mother,  alone  understood. 

Mariquita,  the  second  daughter,  knelt,  with  her  slender 
clinging  arms  about  her  mother;  the  hot  tears  fell  from  her 
eyes,  and  her  little  brother  Manuel  upbraided  her  for  weeping. 
Just  at  that  moment  the  castle  chaplain  came  in ;  the  whole 
family  surrounded  him  and  led  him  up  to  Juanito.  Victor 
felt  that  he  could  endure  the  sight  no  longer,  and  with  a  sign 
to  Clara  he  hurried  from  the  room  to  make  one  last  effort 
for  them.  He  found  the  general  in  boisterous  spirits ;  the 
officers  were  still  sitting  over  their  dinner  and  drinking  to- 
gether ;  the  wine  had  loosened  their  tongues. 

An  hour  later,  a  hundred  of  the  principal  citizens  of  Menda 
were  summoned  to  the  terrace  by  the  general's  orders  to  wit- 
ness the  execution  of  the  family  of  Leganes.  A  detachment 
had  been  told  off  to  keep  order  among  the  Spanish  townsfolk, 
who  were  marshaled  beneath  the  gallows  whereon  the  Marquis' 
servants  hung ;  the  feet  of  those  martyrs  of  their  cause  all  but 
touched  the  citizens'  heads.  Thirty  paces  away  stood  the 
block;  the  blade  of  a  scimitar  glittered  upon  it,  and  the  exe- 
cutioner stood  by  in  case  Juanito  should  refuse  at  the  last. 

The  deepest  silence  prevailed,  but  before  long  it  was  broken 
by  the  sound  of  many  footsteps,  the  measured  tramp  of  a  picket 


THE  EXECUTIONER.  307 

of  soldiers,  and  the  jingling  of  their  weapons.  Mingled  with 
these  came  other  noises — loud  talk  and  laughter  from  the 
dinner-table  where  the  officers  were  sitting ;  just  as  the  music 
and  the  sound  of  the  dancers'  feet  had  drowned  the  prepara- 
tions for  last  night's  treacherous  butchery. 

All  eyes  turned  to  the  castle,  and  beheld  the  family  of 
nobles  coming  forth  with  incredible  composure  to  their  death. 
Every  brow  was  serene  and  calm.  One  alone  among  them, 
haggard  and  overcome,  leaned  on  the  arm  of  the  priest,  who 
poured  forth  all  the  consolations  of  religion  for  the  one  man 
who  was  condemned  to  live.  Then  the  executioner,  like  the 
spectators,  knew  that  Juanito  had  consented  to  perform  his 
office  for  a  day.  The  old  Marquis  and  his  wife,  Clara  and 
Mariquita,  and  their  two  brothers  knelt  a  few  paces  from  the 
fatal  spot.  Juanito  reached  it,  guided  by  the  priest.  As  he 
stood  at  the  block,  the  executioner  plucked  him  by  the  sleeve, 
and  took  him  aside,  probably  to  give  him  certain  instructions. 
The  confessor  so  placed  the  victims  that  they  could  not  wit- 
ness the  executions,  but  one  and  all  stood  upright  and  fearless, 
like  Spaniards,  as  they  were. 

Clara  sprang  to  her  brother's  side  before  the  others. 

"Juanito,"  she  said  to  him,  "be  merciful  to  my  lack  of 
courage.     Take  me  first !  " 

As  she  spoke,  the  footsteps  of  a  man  running  at  full  speed 
echoed  from  the  walls,  and  Victor  appeared  upon  the  scene. 
Clara  was  kneeling  before  the  block ;  her  white  neck  seemed 
to  appeal  to  the  blade  to  fall.  The  officer  turned  faint,  but 
he  found  strength  to  rush  to  her  side. 

"  The  general  grants  you  your  life  if  you  will  consent  to 
marry  me,"  he  murmured. 
The  Spanish  girl  gave  the  officer  a  glance  full  of  proud  disdain. 

"  Now,  Juanito  !  "  she  said  in  her  deep-toned  voice. 

Her  head  fell  at  Victor's  feet.  A  shudder  ran  through  the 
Marquesa  de  Leganes,  a  convulsive  tremor  that  she  could  not 
control,  but  she  gave  no  other  sign  of  her  anguish. 


308  THE  EXECUTIGNER. 

"Is  this  where  I  ought  to  be,  dear  Juanito?  Is  it  all 
right?  "  little  Manuel  asked  his  brother. 

"Oh,  Mariquita,  you  are  weeping!"  Juanito  said  when 
his  sister  came. 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl;  "I  am  thinking  of  you,  poor 
Juanito  ;  how  unhappy  you  will  be  when  we  are  gone." 

Then  the  Marquis'  tall  figure  approached.  He  looked  at 
the  block  where  his  children's  blood  had  been  shed,  turned  to 
the  mute  and  motionless  crowd,  and  said  in  a  loud  voice  as  he 
stretched  out  his  hands  to  Juanito. 

"  Spaniards  !  I  give  my  son  a  father's  blessing.  Now, 
Marquis,  strike  '  without  fear  \ '  thou  art  '  without  reproach,'  " 

But  when  his  mother  came  near,  leaning  on  the  confessor's 
arm— "  She  fed  me  from  her  breast!"  Juanito  cried,  in 
tones  that  drew  a  cry  of  horror  from  the  crowd.  The 
uproarious  mirth  of  the  officers  over  their  wine  died  away 
before  that  terrible  cry.  The  Marquesa  knew  that  Juanito' s 
courage  was  exhausted ;  at  one  bound  she  sprang  to  the  balus- 
trade, leaped  forth,  and  was  dashed  to  pieces  on  the  rocks 
below.  A  cry  of  admiration  broke  from  the  spectators. 
Juanito  swooned. 

"  General,"  said  an  officer,  half-drunk  by  this  time,  "  Mar- 
chand  has  just  been  telling  me  something  about  this  execu- 
tion ;  I  will  wager  that  it  was  not  by  your  orders." 

"Are  you  forgetting,  gentlemen,  that  in  a  month's  time 
five  hundred  families  in  France  will  be  in  mourning,  and  that 

we   are   still    in  Spain?"    cried    General  G .    "Do  you 

want  us  to  leave  our  bones  here?" 

But  not  a  man  at  the  table,  not  even  a  subaltern,  dared  to 
empty  his  glass  after  that  speech. 

In  spite  of  the  respect  in  which  all  men  hold  the  Marques 
de  Leganes,  in  spite  of  the  title  of  El  Verdugo  (the  execu- 
tioner)  conferred   upon   him   as  a  patent  of  nobility  by  the 


THE  EXECUTIONER. 


309 


King  of  Spain,  the  great  noble  is  consumed  by  a  gnawing 
grief.  He  lives  a  retired  life,  and  seldom  appears  in  public. 
The  burden  of  his  heroic  crime  weighs  heavily  upon  him,  and 
he  seems  to  wait  impatiently  till  the  birth  of  a  second  son 
shall  release  him,  and  he  may  go  to  join  the  Shades  that 
never  cease  to  haunt  him. 

Paris,  October ;  1820. 


FAREWELL. 

{Adieu.') 
To  Prince  Friedrich  von  Schwarzenber? 

"  Come,  Deputy  of  the  Centre,  come  along !  We  shall 
have  to  mend  our  pace  if  we  mean  to  sit  down  to  dinner 
when  every  one  else  does,  and  that's  a  fact !  Hurry  up  ! 
Jump,  Marquis  !  That's  it !  Well  done  !  You  are  bounding 
over  the  furrows  just  like  a  stag  !  " 

These  words  were  uttered  by  a  sportsman  seated  much  at 
his  ease  on  the  outskirts  of  the  Foret  de  lTsle-Adam  ;  he  had 
just  finished  a  Havana  cigar,  which  he  had  smoked  while  he 
waited  for  his  companion,  who  had  evidently  been  straying 
about  for  some  time  among  the  forest  undergrowth.  Four 
panting  dogs  by  the  speaker's  side  likewise  watched  the  pro- 
gress of  the  personage  for  whose  benefit  the  remarks  were 
made.  To  make  their  sarcastic  import  fully  clear,  it  should 
be  added  that  the  second  sportsman  was  both  short  and  stout; 
his  ample  girth  indicated  a  truly  magisterial  corpulence,  and 
in  consequence  his  progress  across  the  furrows  was  by  no 
means  easy.  He  was  striding  over  a  vast  field  of  stubble ; 
the  dried  cornstalks  underfoot  added  not  a  little  to  the  diffi- 
culties of  his  passage,  and,  to  add  to  his  discomforts,  the  genial 
influence  of  the  sun  that  slanted  into  his  eyes  brought  great 
drops  of  perspiration  into  his  face.  The  uppermost  thought 
in  his  mind  being  a  strong  desire  to  keep  his  balance,  he 
lurched  to  and  fro  much  like  a  coach  jolted  over  an  atrocious 
road. 

It  was  one  of  those  September  days  of  almost  tropical  heat 
that  finishes  the  work  of  summer  and  ripens  the  grapes.    Such 

(31#) 


FAREWELL.  311 

heat  forbodes  a  coming  storm ;  and  though  as  yet  there  were 
wide  patches  of  blue  between  the  dark  rain-clouds  low  down 
on  the  horizon,  pale  golden  masses  were  rising  and  scattering 
with  ominous  swiftness  from  west  to  east,  and  drawing  a  shad- 
owy veil  across  the  sky.  The  wind  was  still,  save  in  the  upper 
regions  of  the  air,  so  that  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere 
seemed  to  compress  the  steamy  heat  of  the  earth  into  the 
forest  glades.  The  tall  forest  trees  shut  out  every  breath  of 
air  so  completely  that  the  little  valley  across  which  the  sports- 
man was  making  his  way  was  as  hot  as  a  furnace ;  the  silent 
forest  seemed  parched  with  the  fiery  heat.  Birds  and  insects 
were  mute ;  the  topmost  twigs  of  the  trees  swayed  with 
scarcely  perceptible  motion.  Any  one  who  retains  some  recol- 
lection of  the  summer  of  1819  must  surely  compassionate  the 
plight  of  the  hapless  supporter  of  the  ministry  who  toiled  and 
sweated  over  the  stubble  to  rejoin  his  satirical  comrade.  That 
gentleman,  as  he  smoked  his  cigar,  had  arrived,  by  a  process 
of  calculation  based  on  the  altitude  of  the  sun,  to  the  con- 
clusion that  it  must  be  about  five  o'clock. 

"Where  the  devil  are  we?"  asked  the  stout  sportsman. 
He  wiped  his  brow  as  he  spoke,  and  propped  himself  against 
a  tree  in  the  field  opposite  his  companion,  feeling  quite  un- 
equal to  clearing  the  broad  ditch  that  lay  between  them. 

"And  you  ask  that  question  of  me  /"  retorted  the  other, 
laughing  from  his  bed  of  tall  brown  grasses  on  the  top  of  the 
bank.  He  flung  the  end  of  his  cigar  into  the  ditch,  exclaim- 
ing, "  I  swear  by  Saint  Hubert  that  no  one  shall  catch  me 
risking  myself  again  in  a  country  that  I  don't  know  with 
a  magistrate,  even  if,  like  you,  my  dear  d'Albon,  he  happens 
to  be  an  old  schoolfellow." 

"  Why,  Philip,  have  you  really  forgotten  your  own  lan- 
guage ?  You  surely  must  have  left  your  wits  behind  you  in 
Siberia,"  said  the  stouter  of  the  two,  with  a  glance  half- 
comic,  half-pathetic  at  a  guide-post  distant  about  a  hundred 
paces  from  them. 


312  FARE  WELL. 

"  I  understand,"  replied  the  one  addressed  as  Philip.  He 
snatched  up  his  rifle,  suddenly  sprang  to  his  feet,  made  but 
one  jump  of  it  into  the  field,  and  rushed  off  to  the  guide-post. 
"  This  way,  d'Albon,  here  you  are  !  left  about  !  "  he  shouted, 
gesticulating  in  the  direction  of  the  high-road.  "  To  Baillet 
and  T Isle- Adam  !  "  he  went  on  ;  "  so  if  we  go  along  here, 
we  shall  be  sure  to  come  upon  the  cross-road  to  Cassan." 

"Quite  right,  colonel,"  said  M.  d'Albon,  putting  the  cap 
with  which  he  had  been  fanning  himself  back  on  his  head. 

"  Then  forward /  highly  respected  councilor,"  returned 
Colonel  Philip,  whistling  to  the  dogs,  that  seemed  already  to 
obey  him  rather  than  the  magistrate  their  master. 

"  Are  you  aware,  my  Lord  Marquis,  that  two  leagues  yet 
remain  before  us?"  inquired  the  malicious  soldier.  "That 
village  down  yonder  must  be  Baillet." 

"  Great  heavens?  "  cried  the  Marquis  d'Albon.  "  Go  on 
to  Cassan  by  all  means,  if  you  like  ;  but  if  you  do,  you  will 
go  alone.  I  prefer  to  wait  here,  storm  or  no  storm  ;  you  can 
send  a  horse  for  me  from  the  chateau.  You  have  been  making 
game  of  me,  Sucy.  We  were  to  have  a  nice  day's  sport  by 
ourselves  ;  we  were  not  to  go  very  far  from  Cassan,  and  go 
over  ground  that  I  knew.  Pooh  !  Instead  of  a  day's  fun, 
you  have  kept  me  running  like  a  greyhound  since  four  o'clock 
this  morning,  and  nothing  but  a  cup  or  two  of  milk  by  way 
^of  breakfast.  Oh  !  if  ever  you  find  yourself  in  a  court  of  law, 
I  will  take  care  that  the  day  goes  against  you  if  you  were  in 
the  right  a  hundred  times  over." 

The  dejected  sportsman  sat  himself  down  on  one  of  the 
stumps  at  the  foot  of  the  guide-post,  disencumbered  himself 
of  his  rifle  and  empty  game-bag,  and  heaved  a  prolonged  sigh. 

"  Oh,  France,  behold  thy  deputies  !  "  laughed  Colonel  de 
Sucy.  "  Poor  old  d'Albon  \  if  you  had  spent  six  months  at 
the  other  end  of  Siberia  as  I  did " 

He  broke  off,  and  his  eyes  sought  the  sky,  as  if  the  story  of 
his  troubles  was  a  secret  between  himself  and  God. 


FAREWELL.  313 

"Come,  march  !  "  he  added.  "  If  you  once  sit  down,  it 
is  all  over  with  you." 

"I  can't  help  it,  Philip!  It  is  such  an  old  habit  in  a 
magistrate  !  I  am  dead  beat,  upon  my  honor.  If  I  had 
only  bagged  one  hare  though  !  " 

Two  men  more  different  are  seldom  seen  together.  The 
civilian,  a  man  of  forty-two,  seemed  scarcely  more  than  thirty  ; 
while  the  soldier,  at  thirty  years  of  age,  looked  to  be  forty  at 
the  least.  Both  wore  the  red  rosette  that  proclaimed  them 
to  be  officers  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  A  few  locks  of  hair, 
mingled  white  and  black,  like  a  magpie's  wing,  had  strayed 
from  beneath  the  colonel's  cap;  while  thick,  fair  curls  clus- 
tered about  the  magistrate's  temples.  The  colonel  was  tall, 
spare,  dried  up,  but  muscular;  the  lines  in  his  pale  face  told 
a  tale  of  vehement  passions  or  of  terrible  sorrows ;  but  his 
comrade's  jolly  countenance  beamed  with  health,  and  would 
have  done  credit  to  an  Epicurean.  Both  men  were  deeply 
sunburnt.  Their  high  gaiters  of  brown  leather  carried  souve- 
nirs of  every  ditch  and  swamp  that  they  crossed  that  day. 

"  Come,  come,"  cried  M.  de  Sucy,  "  forward  !  One  short 
hour's  march,  and  we  shall  be  at  Cassan  with  a  good  dinner 
before  us." 

"You  never  were  in  love,  that  is  positive,"  returned  the 
councilor,  with  a  comically  piteous  expression.  "You  are 
as  inexorable  as  Article  304  of  the  Penal  Code  !  " 

Philip  de  Sucy  shuddered  violently.  Deep  lines  appeared 
in  his  broad  forehead,  his  face  was  overcast  like  the  sky  above 
them  ;  but  though  his  features  seemed  to  contract  with  the 
pain  of  an  intolerably  bitter  memory,  no  tears  came  to  his 
eyes.  Like  all  men  of  strong  character,  he  possessed  the 
power  of  forcing  his  emotions  down  into  some  inner  depth, 
and,  perhaps,  like  many  reserved  natures,  he  shrank  from  lay- 
ing bare  a  wound  too  deep  for  any  words  of  human  speech, 
and  winced  at  the  thought  of  ridicule  from  those  who  do  not 
care  to  understand.     M.  d'Albon  was  one  of  those  who  are 

L 


314  FAREWELL. 

keenly  sensitive  by  nature  to  the  distress  of  others,  who  feel 
at  once  the  pain  they  have  unwittingly  given  by  some  blunder. 
He  respected  his  friend's  mood,  rose  to  his  feet,  forgot  his 
weariness,  and  followed  in  silence,  thoroughly  annoyed  with 
himself  for  having  touched  on  a  wound  that  seemed  not  yet 
healed. 

"  Some  day  I  will  tell  you  my  story,"  Philip  said  at  last, 
wringing  his  friend's  hands,  while  he  acknowledged  his  dumb 
repentance  with  a  heartrending  glance.      "  To-day,  I  cannot." 

They  walked  on  in  silence.  As  the  colonel's  distress  passed 
off  the  aHmcilor's  fatigue  returned.  -Instinctively,  or  rather 
urged  by  weariness,  his  eyes  explored  the  depths  of  the  forest 
around  them  ;  he  looked  high  and  low  among  the  trees,  and 
gazed  along  the  avenues,  hoping  to  discover  some  dwelling 
where  he  might  ask  for  hospitality.  They  reached  a  place 
where  several  roads  met  ;  and  the  councilor,  fancying  that  he 
saw  a  thin  film  of  smoke  rising  through  the  trees,  made  a 
stand  and  looked  sharply  about  him.  He  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  dark  green  branches  of  some  firs  among  the  other  forest 
trees,  and  finally,  "  A  house  !  a  house!"  he  shouted.  No 
sailor  could  have  raised  the  cry  of  "Land  ahead  !  "  more 
joyfully  than  he. 

He  plunged  at  once  into  undergrowth,  somewhat  of  the 
thickest ;  and  the  colonel,  who  had  fallen  into  deep  musings, 
followed  him  unheedingly. 

"  I  would  rather  have  an  omelette  here  and  home-made 
bread,  and  a  chair  to  sit  down  in,  than  go  further  for  a  sofa, 
truffles,  and  Bordeaux  wine  at  Cassan." 

This  outburst  of  enthusiasm  on  the  councilor's  part  was 
caused  by  the  sight  of  the  whitened  wall  of  a  house  in  the 
distance,  standing  out  in  strong  contrast  against  the  brown 
masses  of  knotted  tree-trunks  in  the  forest. 

"Aha!  This  used  to  be  a  priory,  I  should  say,"  the 
Marquis  d'Albon  cried  once  more,  as  they  stood  before  a 
grim  old  gateway.     Through  the  grating  they  could  see  the 


FAREWELL.  315 

house  itself  standing  in  the  midst  of  some  considerable  extent 
of  park  land ;  from  the  style  of  the  architecture  it  appeared 
to  have  been  a  monastery  once  upon  a  time. 

"Those  knowing  rascals  of  monks  knew  how  to  choose  a 
site!" 

This  last  exclamation  was  caused  by  the  magistrate's  amaze- 
ment at  the  romantic  hermitage  before  his  eyes.  The  house 
had  been  built  on  a  spot  half-way  up  the  hillside  on  the  slope 
below  the  village  of  Nerville,  which  crowned  the  summit.  A 
huge  circle  of  great  oak  trees,  hundreds  of  years  old,  guarded 
the  solitary  place  from  intrusion.  There  appeared  to  be 
about  forty  acres  of  the  park.  The  main  building  of  the 
monastery  facecj  the  south,  and  stood  in  a  space  of  green 
meadow,  picturesquely  intersected  by  several  tiny  clear 
streams,  and  by  larger  sheets  of  water  so  disposed  as  to  have 
a  natural  effect.  Shapely  trees  with  contrasting  foliage  grew 
here  and  there.  Grottos  had  been  ingeniously  contrived; 
and  broad  terraced  walks,  now  in  ruin,  though  the  steps  were 
broken  and  the  balustrades  eaten  through  with  rust,  gave  to 
this  sylvan  Thebaid  a  certain  character  of  its  own.  The  art 
of  man  and  the  picturesqueness  of  nature  had  wrought  together 
to  produce  a  charming  effect.  Human  passions  surely  could 
not  cross  that  boundary  of  tall  oak  trees  which  shut  out  the 
sounds  of  the  outer  world,  and  screened  the  fierce  heat  of  the 
sun  from  this  forest  sanctuary. 

"What  neglect!  "  said  M.  d'Albon  to  himself,  after  the 
first  sense  of  delight  in  the  melancholy  aspect  of  the  ruins  in 
the  landscape,  which  seemed  blighted  by  a  curse. 

It  was  like  some  haunted  spot,  shunned  of  men.  The  twisted 
ivy  stems  clambered  everywhere,  hiding  everything  away 
beneath  a  luxuriant  green  mantle.  Moss  and  lichens,  brown 
and  gray,  yellow  and  red,  covered  the  trees  with  fantastic 
patches  of  color,  grew  upon  the  benches  in  the  garden,  over- 
ran the  roof  and  the  walls  of  the  house.  The  window-sashes 
were  weather-worn  and  warped  with  age,  the  balconies  were 


316  FAREWELL. 

dropping  to  pieces,  the  terraces  in  ruins.     Here  and  there  the 

folding  shutters  hung  by  a  single  hinge.  The  crazy  doors 
would  have  given  way  at  the  first  attempt  to  force  an  entrance. 

Out  in  the  orchard  the  neglected  fruit  trees  were  running  to 
wood,  the  rambling  branches  bore  no  fruit  save  the  glistening 
mistletoe  berries,  and  tall  plants  were  growing  in  the  garden 
walks.  All  this  forlornness  shed  a  charm  across  the  picture 
that  wrought  on  the  spectator's  mind  with  an  influence  like 
that  of  some  enchanting  poem,  filling  his  soul  with  dreamy 
fancies.  A  poet  must  have  lingered  there  in  deep  and  melan- 
choly musings,  marveling  at  the  harmony  of  this  wilderness, 
where  decay  had  a  certain  grace  of  its  own. 

In  a  moment  a  few  gleams  of  sunlight  struggled  through  a 
rift  in  the  clouds,  and  a  shower  of  colored  light  fell  over  the 
wild  garden.  The  brown  tiles  of  the  roof  glowed  in  the 
light,  the  mosses  took  bright  hues,  strange  shadows  played 
over  the  grass  beneath  the  trees ;  the  dead  autumn  tints  grew 
vivid,  bright  unexpected  contrasts  were  evoked  by  the  light, 
every  leaf  stood  out  sharply  in  the  clear,  thin  air.  Then  all 
at  once  the  sunlight  died  away,  and  the  landscape  that  seemed 
to  have  spoken  grew  silent  and  gloomy  again,  or,  rather,  it 
took  gray  soft  tones  like  the  tenderest  hues  of  autumn  dusk. 

"It  is  the  palace  of  the  Sleeping  Beauty,"  the  councilor 
said  to  himself  (he  had  already  begun  to  look  at  the  place 
from  the  point  of  view  of  an  owner  of  property).  "Whom 
can  the  place  belong  to,  I  wonder.  He  must  be  a  great  fool 
not  to  live  on  such  a  charming  little  estate  !  " 

Just  at  that  moment,  a  woman  sprang  out  from  under  a 
walnut  tree  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  gateway,  and  passed 
before  the  councilor  as  noiselessly  and  swiftly  as  the  shadow 
of  a  cloud.  This  apparition  struck  him  dumb  with  amaze- 
ment. 

"  Hallo,  d'Albon,  what  is  the  matter?  "  asked  the  colonel. 

"  I  am  rubbing  my  eyes  to  find  out  whether  I  am  awake  or 
asleep,"   answered    the   magistrate,   whose   countenance  was 


FAREWELL.  317 

pressed  against  the  grating  in  the  hope  of  catching  a  second 
glimpse  of  the  ghost. 

"  In  all  probability  she  is  under  that  fig  tree,"  he  went  on, 
indicating,  for  Philip's  benefit,  some  branches  that  over- 
topped the  wall1  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  gateway. 

"She?     Who?" 

"  Eh  !  how  should  I  know?  "  answered  M.  d'Albon.  "  A 
strange-looking  woman  sprang  up  there  under  my  very  eyes 
just  now,"  he  added,  in  a  low  voice  ;  "she  looked  to  me 
more  like  a  ghost  than  a  living  being.  She  was  so  slender, 
light  and  shadowy  that  she  might  be  transparent.  Her  face 
was  as  white  as  milk,  her  hair,  her  eyes,  and  her  dress  were 
black.  She  gave  me  a  glance  as  she  flitted  by.  I  am  not 
easily  frightened,  but  that  cold,  stony  stare  of  hers  froze  the 
blood  in  my  veins." 

"  Was  she  pretty  ?  "  inquired  Philip. 

"  I  don't  know.  I  saw  nothing  but  those  eyes  in  her 
head." 

"  The  devil  take  dinner  at  Cassan  !  "  exclaimed  the  colonel; 
"  let  us  stay  here.  I  am  as  eager  as  a  boy  to  see  the  inside  of 
this  queer  place.  The  window-sashes  are  painted  red,  do  you 
see  ?  There  is  a  red  line  round  the  panels  of  the  doors  and 
the  edges  of  the  shutters.  It  might  be  the  devil's  own  dwell- 
ing; perhaps  he  took  it  over  when  the  monks  went  out. 
Now,  then,  let  us  give  chase  to  the  black  and  white  lady; 
come  along  !  "  cried  Philip,  with  forced  gaiety. 

He  had  scarcely  finished  speaking  when  the  two  sportsmen 
heard  a  cry  as  if  some  bird  had  been  taken  in  a  snare.  They 
listened.  There  was  a  sound  like  the  murmur  of  rippling 
water,  as  something  forced  its  way  through  the  bushes ;  but 
diligently  as  they  lent  their  ears,  there  was  no  footfall  on  the 
path,  the  earth  kept  the  secret  of  the  mysterious  woman's 
passage,  if  indeed  she  had  moved  from  her  hiding-place. 

"  This  is  very  strange  !  "  cried  Philip. 

Following  the  wall  of  the  park,  the  two  friends  reached 


318  FAREWELL. 

before  long  a  forest  road  leading  to  the  village  of  Chauvry ; 
they  went  along  this  track  in  the  direction  of  the  highway  to 
Paris,  and  reached  another  large  gateway.  Through  the  rail- 
ings they  had  a  complete  view  of  the  facade  of  the  mysterious 
house.  From  this  point  of  view,  the  dilapidation  was  still 
more  apparent.  Huge  cracks  had  riven  the  walls  of  the  main 
body  of  the  house  built  round  three  sides  of  a  square. 
Evidently  the  place  was  allowed  to  fall  to  ruin ;  there  were 
holes  in  the  roof,  broken  slates  and  tiles  lay  about  below. 
Fallen  fruit  from  the  orchard  trees  was  left  to  rot  on  the  ground  ; 
a  cow  was  grazing  over  the  bowling-green  and  trampling  the 
flowers  in  the  garden  beds ;  a  goat  browsed  on  the  green 
grapes  and  young  vine-shoots  on  the  trellis. 

'•'  It  is  all  of  a  piece, ' '  remarked  the  colonel.  ' '  The  neglect 
is  in  a  fashion  systematic."  He  laid  his  hand  on  the  chain 
of  the  bell-pull,  but  the  bell  had  lost  its  clapper.  The  two 
friends  heard  no  sound  save  the  peculiar  grating  creak  of  the 
rusty  spring.  A  little  door  in  the  wall  beside  the  gateway, 
though  ruinous,  held  good  against  all  their  efforts  to  force  it 
open. 

"  Oho  !  all  this  is  growing  very  interesting,"  Philip  said  to 
his  companion. 

"If  I  were  not  a  magistrate,"  returned  M.  d'Albon,  "I 
should  think  that  the  woman  in  black  is  a  witch." 

The  words  were  scarcely  out  of  his  mouth  when  the  cow 
came  up  to  the  railings  and  held  out  her  warm  damp  nose,  as 
if  she  were  glad  of  human  society.  Then  a  woman,  if  so 
indescribable  a  being  could  be  called  a  woman,  sprang  up 
from  the  bushes,  and  pulled  at  the  cord  about  the  cow's  neck. 
From  beneath  the  crimson  handkerchief  about  the  woman's 
head,  fair  matted  hair  escaped,  something  as  tow  hangs  about 
a  spindle.  She  wore  no  kerchief  at  the  throat.  A  coarse 
black-and-gray  striped  woolen  petticoat,  too  short  by  several 
inches,  left  her  legs  bare.  She  might  have  belonged  to  some 
tribe  of  Redskins  in  Fenimore  Cooper's  novels  ;  for  her  neck, 


FAREWELL.  319 

arms,  and  ankles  looked  as  if  they  had  been  painted  brick-red. 
There  was  no  spark  of  intelligence  in  her  featureless  face  ;  her 
pale,  bluish  eyes  looked  out  dull  and  expressionless  from 
beneath  the  eyebrows  with  one  or  two  straggling  white  hairs 
on  them.  Her  teeth  were  prominent  and  uneven,  but  white 
as  a  dog's. 

" Hallo,  good  woman,"  called  M.  de  Sucy. 

She  came  slowly  up  to  the  railing,  and  stared  at  the  two 
sportsmen  with  a  contorted  smile  painful  to  see. 

"  Where  are  we?  What  is  the  name  of  the  house  yonder? 
Whom  does  it  belong  to  ?  Who  are  you  ?  Do  you  come 
from  hereabouts^?" 

To  these  questions,  and  to  a  host  of  others  poured  out  in 
succession  upon  her  by  the  two  friends,  she  made  no  answer 
save  gurgling  noises  in  the  throat,  more  like  animal  sounds 
than  anything  uttered  by  a  human  voice. 

"Don't  you  see  that  she  is  deaf  and  dumb?"  said  M. 
d'Albon. 

"  Franciscan  monks  !  "  the  peasant-woman  said  at  last. 

"Ah  !  she  is  right.  The  house  looks  as  though  it  might 
once  have  been  a  Minorite  convent,"  he  went  on. 

Again  they  plied  the  peasant  woman  with  questions,  but, 
like  a  wayward  child,  she  colored  up,  fidgeted  with  her  sabot, 
twisted  the  rope  by  which  she  held  the  cow  that  had  fallen  to 
grazing  again,  stared  at  the  sportsmen,  and  scrutinized  every 
article  of  clothing  upon  them  ;  she  gibbered,  grunted,  and 
clucked,  but  no  articulate  word  did  she  utter. 

"Your  name?"  asked  Philip,  fixing  her  with  his  eyes  as 
if  he  were  trying  to  bewitch  the  woman. 

"Genevieve,"  she  answered,  with  an  empty  laugh. 

"The  cow  is  the  most  intelligent  creature  we  have  seen  so 
far,"  exclaimed  the  magistrate.  "I  shall  fire  a  shot,  that 
ought  to  bring  somebody  out." 

D'Albon  had  just  taken  up  his  rifle  when  the  colonel  put 
out   a   hand   to   stop   him,  and   pointed   out  the  mysterious 


320  FAREWELL. 

woman  who  had  aroused  such  lively  curiosity  in  them.  She 
seemed  to  be  absorbed  in  deep  thought,  as  she  went  along  a 
green  alley  some  little  distance  away,  so  slowly  that  the  friends 
had  time  to  take  a  good  look  at  her.  She  wore  a  threadbare 
black  satin  gown,  her  long  hair  curled  thickly  over  her  fore- 
head, and  fell  like  a  shawl  about  her  shoulders  below  her 
waist.  Doubtless  she  was  accustomed  to  the  dishevelment  of 
her  locks,  for  she  seldom  put  back  the  hair  on  either  side  of 
her  brows;  but  when  she  did  so,  she  shook  her  head  with  a 
sudden  jerk  that  had  not  to  be  repeated  to  shake  away  the 
thick  veil  from  her  eyes  or  forehead.  In  everything  that  she 
did,  moreover,  there  was  a  wonderful  certainty  in  the  working 
of  the  mechanism,  an  unerring  swiftness  and  precision,  like 
that  of  an  animal,  wellnigh  marvelous  in  a  woman. 

The  two  sportsmen  were  amazed  to  see  her  spring  up  into 
an  apple  tree  and  cling  to  a  bough  lightly  as  a  bird.  She 
snatched  at  the  fruit,  ate  it,  and  dropped  to  the  ground  with 
the  same  supple  grace  that  charms  us  in  a  squirrel.  The 
elasticity  of  her  limbs  took  all  appearance  of  awkwardness  or 
effort  from  her  movements.  She  played  about  upon  the  grass, 
rolling  in  it  as  a  young  child  might  have  done ;  then,  on  a 
sudden,  she  lay  still  and  stretched  out  her  feet  and  hands, 
with  the  languid  natural  grace  of  a  kitten  dozing  in  the  sun. 

There  was  a  threatening  growl  of  thunder  far  away,  and  at 
this  she  started  up  on  all  fours  and  listened,  like  a  dog  who 
hears  a  strange  footstep.  One  result  of  this  strange  attitude 
was  to  separate  her  thick  black  hair  into  two  masses,  that  fell 
away  on  either  side  of  her  face  and  left  her  shoulders  bare; 
the  two  witnesses  of  this  singular  scene  wondered  at  the  white- 
ness of  the  skin  that  shone  like  a  meadow  daisy,  and  at  the 
neck  that  indicated  the  perfection  of  the  rest  of  her  form. 

A  wailing  cry  broke  from  her;  she  rose  to  her  feet,  and 
stood  upright.  Every  successive  movement  was  made  so 
lightly,  so  gracefully,  so  easily,  that  she  seemed  to  be  no 
human  being,  but  one  of  Ossian's  maids  of  the  mist.     She 


FAREWELL.  321 

went  across  the  grass  to  one  of  the  pools  of  water,  deftly 
shook  off  her  shoe,  and  seemed  to  enjoy  dipping  her  foot, 
white  as  marble,  in  the  spring;  doubtless  it  pleased  her  to 
make  the  circling  ripples,  and  watch  them  glitter  like  gems. 
She  knelt  down  by  the  brink,  and  played  there  like  a  child, 
dabbling  her  long  tresses  in  the  water,  and  flinging  them  loose 
again  to  see  the  water  drip  from  the  ends,  like  a  string  of 
pearls  in  the  sunless  light. 

"  She  is  mad  !  "  cried  the  councilor. 

A  hoarse  cry  rang  through  the  air ;  it  came  from  Genevieve, 
and  seemed  to  be  meant  for  the  mysterious  woman.  She  rose 
to  her  feet  in  a  moment,  flinging  back  the  hair  from  her  face, 
and  then  the  colonel  and  d'Albon  could  see  her  features  dis- 
tinctly. As  soon  as  she  saw  the  two  friends  she  bounded  to 
the  railings  with  the  swiftness  of  a  fawn. 

"Farewell /"  she  said  in  low,  musical  tones,  but  they 
could  not  discover  the  least  trace  of  feeling,  the  least  idea  in 
the  sweet  sounds  that  they  had  awaited  impatiently. 

M.  d'Albon  admired  the  long  lashes,  the  thick,  dark  eye- 
brows, the  dazzling  fairness  of  a  skin  untinged  by  any  trace 
of  red.  Only  the  delicate  blue  veins  contrasted  with  that 
uniform  whiteness. 

But  when  the  Marquis  turned  to  communicate  his  surprise 
at  the  sight  of  so  strange  an  apparition,  he  saw  the  colonel 
stretched  on  the  grass  like  one  dead.  M.  d'Albon  fired  his 
gun  into  the  air,  shouted  for  help,  and  tried  to  raise  his  friend. 
At  the  sound  of  the  shot,  the  strange  lady,  who  had  stood 
motionless  by  the  gate,  fled  away,  crying  out  like  a  wounded 
wild  creature,  circling  round  and  round  in  the  meadow,  with 
every  sign  of  unspeakable  terror. 

M.  d'Albon  heard  a  carriage  rolling  along  the  road  tol'Isle 
Adam,  and  waved  his  handkerchief  to  implore  help.  The 
carriage  immediately  came  towards  the  Minorite  convent,  and 
M.  d'Albon  recognized  neighbors,  M.  de  and  Mme.  de  Grand- 
ville,  who  hastened  to  alight  and  put  their  carriage  at  his  dis- 
21 


322  FARE  WELL. 

posal.  Colonel  de  Sucy  inhaled  the  salts  which  Mme.  de 
Grandville  happened  to  have  with  her ;  he  opened  his  eyes, 
looked  towards  the  mysterious  figure  that  still  fled  wailing 
through  the  meadow,  and  a  faint  cry  of  horror  broke  from  him ; 
he  closed  his  eyes  again,  with  a  dumb  gesture  of  entreaty  to 
his  friends  to  take  him  away  from  this  scene.  M.  and  Mme. 
de  Grandville  begged  the  councilor  to  make  use  of  their 
carriage,  adding  very  obligingly  that  they  themselves  would 
walk. 

"Who  can  the  lady  be?"  inquired  the  magistrate,  looking 
towards  the  strange  figure. 

"People  think  that  she  comes  from  Moulins,"  answered 
M.  de  Grandville.  "She  is  a  Comtesse  de  Vandieres;  she  is 
said  to  be  mad ;  but  as  she  has  only  been  here  for  two 
months,  I  cannot  vouch  for  the  truth  of  all  this  hearsay  talk." 

M.  d'Albon  thanked  M.  and  Mme.  de  Grandville,  and  they 
set  out  for  Cassan. 

"It  is  she  !  "  cried  Philip,  coming  to  himself. 

"She?  who?"  asked  d'Albon. 

"Stephanie Ah!    dead    and    yet    living   still;    still 

alive,  but  her  mind  is  gone  !  I  thought  the  sight  would  kill 
me." 

The  prudent  magistrate,  recognizing  the  gravity  of  the  crisis 
through  which  his  friend  was  passing,  refrained  from  asking 
questions  or  exciting  him  further,  and  grew  impatient  of  the 
length  of  the  way  to  the  chateau,  for  the  change  wrought  in 
the  colonel's  face  alarmed  him.  He  feared  lest  the  Countess' 
terrible  disease  had  communicated  itself  to  Philip's  brain. 
When  they  reached  the  avenue  at  l'lsie-Adam  d'Albon  sent  the 
servant  for  the  local  doctor,  so  that  the  colonel  had  scarcely 
been  laid  in  bed  before  the  surgeon  was  beside  him. 

"If  Monsieur  le  Colonel  had  not  been  fasting,  the  shock 
must  have  killed  him,"  pronounced  the  leech.  "He  was 
overtired,  and  that  saved  him,"  and  with  a  few  directions  as 
to  the  patient's  treatment,  he  went  to   prepare  a  composing 


FAREWELL.  323 

draught  himself.  M.  de  Sucy  was  better  the  next  morning, 
but  the  doctor  had  insisted  on  sitting  up  all  night  with  him. 

"I  confess,  Monsieur  le  Marquis,"  the  surgeon  said,  "that 
I  feared  for  the  brain.  M.  de  Sucy  has  had  some  very  violent 
shock;  he  is  a  man  of  strong  passions,  but  with  his  tempera- 
ment, the  first  shock  decides  everything.  He  will  very  likely 
be  out  of  danger  to-morrow." 

The  doctor  was  perfectly  right.  The  next  day  the  patient 
was  allowed  to  see  his  friend. 

"  I  want  you  to  do  something  for  me,  dear  d'Albon," 
Philip  said,  grasping  his  friend's  hand.  "  Hasten  at  once  to 
the  Minorite  convent,  find  out  everything  about  the  lady 
whom  we  saw  there,  and  come  back  as  soon  as  you  can  ;  I  shall 
count  the  minutes  till  I  see  you  again." 

M.  d'Albon  called  for  his  horse,  and  galloped  over  to  the 
old  monastery.  When  he  reached  the  gateway  he  found  some 
one  standing  there,  a  tall,  spare  man  with  a  kindly  face,  who 
answered  in  the  affirmative  when  he  was  asked  if  he  lived  in 
the  ruined  house.     M.  d'Albon  explained  his  errand. 

"Why,  then,  it  must  have  been  you,  sir,  who  fired  that 
unlucky  shot  !     You  all  but  killed  my  poor  invalid." 

"  Eh  !  I  fired  into  the  air  !  " 

"  If  you  had  actually  hit  Madame  la  Comtesse,  you  would 
have  done  less  harm  to  her." 

"Well,  well,  then,  we  can  neither  of  us  complain,  for  the 
sight  of  the  Countess  all  but  killed  my  friend,  M.  de  Sucy." 

"The  Baron  de  Sucy,  is  it  possible?"  cried  the  other, 
clasping  his  hands.  "  Has  he  been  in  Russia  ?  was  he  in  the 
Beresina?  " 

"Yes,"  answered  d'Albon.  "He  was  taken  prisoner  by  the 
Cossacks  and  sent  to  Siberia.  He  has  not  been  back  in  this 
country  a  twelvemonth." 

"  Come  in,  monsieur,"  said  the  other,  and  he  led  the  way 
to  a  drawing-room  on  the  ground-floor.  Everything  in  the 
room  showed  signs  of  capricious  destruction. 


324  FAREWELL. 

Valuable  china  jars  lay  in  fragments  on  either  side  of  a 
clock  beneath  a  glass  shade,  which  had  escaped.  The  silk 
hangings  about  the  windows  were  torn  to  rags,  while  the 
muslin  curtains  were  untouched. 

"You  see  about  you  the  havoc  wrought  by  a  charming 
being  to  whom  I  have  dedicated  my  life.  She  is  my  niece  ; 
and  though  medical  science  is  powerless  in  her  case,  I  hope  to 
restore  her  to  reason,  though  the  method  which  I  am  trying 
is,  unluckily,  only  possible  to  the  wealthy." 

Then,  like  all  who  live  much  alone  and  daily  bear  the 
burden  of  a  heavy  trouble,  he  fell  to  talk  with  the  magistrate. 
This  is  the  story  that  he  told,  set  in  order,  and  with  the  many 
digressions  made  by  both  teller  and  hearer  omitted. 

When,  at  nine  o'clock  at  night,  on  the  28th  of  November, 
181 2,  Marshal  Victor  abandoned  the  heights  of  Studzianka, 
which  he  had  held  through  the  day,  he  left  a  thousand  men 
behind  with  instructions  to  protect,  till  the  last  possible  mo- 
ment, the  two  pontoon  bridges  over  the  Beresina  that  still  held 
good.  The  rearguard  was  to  save  if  possible  an  appalling 
number  of  stragglers,  so  numbed  with  the  cold  that  they  ob- 
stinately refused  to  leave  the  baggage-wagons.  The  heroism 
of  the  generous  band  was  doomed  to  fail ;  for,  unluckily,  the 
men  who  poured  down  to  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Beresina  found 
carriages,  caissons,  and  all  kinds  of  property  which  the  army 
had  been  forced  to  abandon  during  its  passage  on  the  27th 
and  28th  days  of  November.  The  poor,  half-frozen  wretches, 
sunk  almost  to  the  level  of  brutes,  finding  such  unhoped-for 
riches,  bivouacked  in  the  deserted  space,  laid  hands  on  the 
military  stores,  improvised  huts  out  of  the  material,  lighted 
fires  with  anything  that  would  burn,  cut  up  the  carcasses  of 
the  horses  for  food,  tore  out  the  linings  of  the  carriages, 
wrapped  themselves  in  them,  and  lay  down  to  sleep,  instead 
of  crossing  the  Beresina  in  peace  under  cover  of  night — the 
Beresina  that  even  then  had  proved,  by  an  incredible  fatality, 


FAREWELL.  325 

so  disastrous  to  the  army.  Such  apathy  on  the  part  of  the 
poor  fellows  can  only  be  understood  by  those  who  remember 
tramping  across  those  vast  deserts  of  snow,  with  nothing  to 
quench  their  thirst  but  snow,  snow  for  their  bed,  snow  as  far 
as  the  horizon  on  every  side,  and  no  food  but  snow,  a  little 
frozen  beetroot,  horseflesh,  or  a  handful  of  meal. 

The  miserable  creatures  were  dropping  down,  overcome  by 
hunger,  thirst,  weariness,  and  sleep,  when  they  reached  the 
shores  of  the  Beresina  and  found  fuel  and  fire  and  victuals, 
countless  wagons  and  tents,  a  whole  improvised  town,  in 
short.  The  whole  village  of  Studzianka  had  been  removed 
piecemeal  from  the  heights  to  the  plain,  and  the  very  perils 
and  miseries  of  this  dangerous  and  doleful  habitation  smiled 
invitingly  to  the  wayfarers,  who  beheld  no  prospect  beyond  it 
but  the  awful  Russian  deserts.  A  huge  hospice,  in  short,  was 
erected  for  twenty  hours  of  existence.  Only  one  thought — 
the  thought  of  rest — appealed  to  men  weary  of  life  or  rejoic- 
ing in  unlooked-for  comfort. 

They  lay  right  in  the  line  of  fire  from  the  cannon  of  the 
Russian  left ;  but  to  that  vast  mass  of  human  creatures,  a 
patch  upon  the  snow,  sometimes  dark,  sometimes  breaking 
into  flame,  the  indefatigable  grapeshot  was  but  one  discom- 
fort the  more.  For  them  it  was  only  a  storm,  and  they  paid 
the  less  attention  to  the  bolts  that  fell  among  them  because 
there  were  none  to  strike  down  there  save  dying  men,  the 
wounded,  or  perhaps  the  dead.  Stragglers  came  up  in  little 
bands  at  every  moment.  These  walking  corpses  instantly 
separated,  and  wandered  begging  from  fire  to  fire;  and  meet- 
ing, for  the  most  part,  with  refusals,  banded  themselves 
together  again,  and  took  by  force  what  they  could  not  other- 
wise obtain.  They  were  deaf  to  the  voices  of  their  officers 
prophesying  death  on  the  morrow,  and  spent  the  energy  re- 
quired to  cross  the  swamp  in  building  shelters  for  the  night 
and  preparing  a  meal  that  often  proved  fatal.  The  coming 
death  no  longer  seemed  an  evil,  for  it  gave  them  an  hour  of 


326  FAREWELL. 

slumber  before  it  came.  Hunger  and  thirst  and  cold — these 
were  evils,  but  not  death. 

At  last  wood  and  fuel  and  canvas  and  shelters  failed,  and 
hideous  brawls  began  between  destitute  late-comers  and  the 
rich  already  in  possession  of  a  lodging.  The  weaker  were 
driven  away,  until  a  few  last  fugitives  before  the  Russian 
advance  were  obliged  to  make  their  bed  in  the  snow,  and  lay 
down  to  rise  no  more. 

Little  by  little  the  mass  of  half-dead  humanity  became  so 
dense,  so  deaf,  so  torpid — or  perhaps  it  should  be  said  so 
happy — that  Marshal  Victor,  their  heroic  defender  against 
twenty  thousand  Russians  under  Wittgenstein,  was  actually 
compelled  to  cut  his  way  by  force  through  this  forest  of  men, 
so  as  to  cross  the  Beresina  with  the  five  thousand  heroes 
whom  he  was  leading  to  the  Emperor.  The  miserable  crea- 
tures preferred  to  be  trampled  and  crushed  to  death  rather 
than  stir  from  their  places,  and  died  without  a  sound,  smiling 
at  the  dead  ashes  of  their  fires,  forgetful  of  France. 

Not  before  ten  o'clock  that  night  did  the  Due  de  Belluno 
reach  the  other  side  of  the  river.  Before  committing  his  men 
to  the  pontoon  bridges  that  led  to  Zembin,  he  left  the  fate  of 
the  rearguard  at  Studzianka  in  Eble's  hands,  and  to  Eble  the 
survivors  of  the  calamities  of  the  Beresina  owed  their  lives. 

About  midnight,  the  great  general,  followed  by  a  courageous 
officer,  came  out  of  his  little  hut  by  the  bridge  and  gazed  at 
the  spectacle  of  this  camp  between  the  bank  of  the  Beresina 
and  the  Borizof  road  to  Studzianka.  The  thunder  of  the 
Russian  cannonade  had  ceased.  Here  and  there  faces  that 
had  nothing  human  about  them  were  lighted  up  by  countless 
fires  that  seemed  to  grow  pale  in  the  glare  of  the  snowfields, 
and  to  give  no  light.  Nearly  thirty  thousand  wretches, 
belonging  to  every  nation  that  Napoleon  had  hurled  upon 
Russia,  lay  there  hazarding  their  lives  with  the  indifference 
of  brute  beasts. 

"We  have  all  these  to  save,"  the  general  said  to  his  sub- 


FARE  WELL.  32? 

ordinate.  "To-morrow  morning  the  Russians  will  be  in 
Studzianka.  The  moment  they  come  up  we  shall  have  to  set 
fire  to  the  bridge ;  so  pluck  up  heart,  my  boy !  Make  your 
way  out  and  up  yonder  through  them,  and  tell  General  Four- 
nier  that  he  has  barely  time  to  evacuate  his  post  and  cut  his 
way  through  to  the  bridge.  As  soon  as  you  have  seen 
him  set  out,  follow  him  down,  take  some  able-bodied  men, 
and  set  fire  to  the  tents,  wagons,  caissons,  carriages,  anything 
and  everything,  without  pity,  and  drive  these  fellows  on  to 
the  bridge.  Compel  everything  that  walks  on  two  legs  to 
take  refuge  on  the  other  bank.  We  must  set  fire  to  the  camp  ; 
it  is  our  last  resource.     If  Berthier  had  let  me  burn  those 

d d  wagons  sooner,  no  lives  need  have  been  lost   in  the 

river  except  my  poor  pontooneers,  my  fifty  heroes,  who  saved 
the  army,  and  will  be  forgotten." 

The  general  passed  his  hand  over  his  forehead  and  said  no 
more.  He  felt  that  Poland  would  be  his  tomb,  and  foresaw 
that  afterwards  no  voice  would  be  raised  to  speak  for  the  noble 
fellows  who  had  plunged  into  the  stream — into  the  waters  of 
the  Beresina  ! — to  drive  in  the  piles  for  the  bridges.  And, 
indeed,  only  one  of  them  is  living  now,  or,  to  be  more  accu- 
rate, starving,  utterly  forgotten,  in  a  country  ^village  !  The 
brave  officer  had  scarcely  gone  a  hundred  paces  towards  Stud- 
zianka, when  General  Eble  roused  some  of  his  patient  pon- 
tooneers, and  began  his  work  of  mercy  by  setting  fire  to  the 
camp  on  the  side  nearest  the  bridge,  so  compelling  the  sleep- 
ers to  rise  and  cross  the  Beresina.  Meanwhile  the  young 
aide-de-camp,  not  without  difficulty,  reached  the  one  wooden 
house  yet  left  standing  in  Studzianka. 

"So  the  box  is  pretty  full,  is  it,  messmate?"  he  said  to  a 
man  whom  he  found  outside. 

"You  will  be  a  knowing  fellow  if  you  manage  to  get  in- 
side," the  officer  returned,  without  turning  round  or  stopping 
his  occupation  of  hacking  at  the  woodwork  of  the  house  with 
his  sabre. 


328  FAREWELL. 

"  Philip,  is  that  you?  "  cried  the  aide-de-camp,  recognizing 
the  voice  of  one  of  his  friends. 

"Yes.  Aha!  is  it  you,  old  fellow?"  returned  M.  de 
Sucy,  looking  around  at  the  aide-de-camp,  who  like  himself 
was  not  more  than  twenty-three  years  old.  "  I  fancied  you 
were  on  the  other  side  of  this  confounded  river.  Do  you 
come  to  bring  us  sweetmeats  for  dessert !  You  will  get  a  warm 
welcome,"  he  added,  as  he  tore  away  a  strip  of  bark  from  the 
wood  and  gave  it  to  his  horse  by  way  of  fodder. 

"I  am  looking  for  your  commandant.  General  Eble  has 
sent  me  to  tell  him  to  file  off  to  Zembin.  You  have  only 
just  time  to  cut  your  way  through  that  mass  of  dead  men  ;  as 
soon  as  you  get  through,  I  am  going  to  set  fire  to  the  place  to 
make  them  move " 

"  You  almost  make  me  feel  warm  !  Your  news  has  put  me 
in  a  fever ;  I  have  two  friends  to  bring  through.  Ah  !  but 
for  these  marmots,  I  should  have  been  dead  before  now,  old 
fellow.  On  their  account  I  am  taking  care  of  my  horse  in- 
stead of  eating  him.  But  have  you  a  crust  about  you,  for 
pity's  sake?  It  is  thirty  hours  since  I  have  stowed  any  vic- 
tuals. I  have  been  fighting  like  a  madman  to  keep  up  a  little 
warmth  in  my  body  and  what  courage  I  have  left." 

"  Poor  Philip  !  I  have  nothing — not  a  scrap  !  But  is  your 
general  in  there?" 

"  Don't  attempt  to  go  in.  The  barn  is  full  of  our  wounded. 
Go  up  a  bit  higher,  and  you  will  see  a  sort  of  pigsty  to  the 
right — that  is  where  the  general  is.  Good-bye,  my  dear 
fellow,  If  ever  we  meet  again  in  a  quadrille  in  a  ballroom  in 
Paris " 

He  did  not  finish  the  sentence,  for  the  treachery  of  the 
northeast  wind  that  whistled  about  them  froze  Major  Philips' 
lips,  and  the  aide-de-camp  kept  moving  for  fear  of  being  frost- 
bitten. Silence  soon  prevailed,  scarcely  broken  by  the  groans 
of  the  wounded  in  the  barn,  or  the  stifled  sounds  made  by 
M.  de  Sucy's  horse  crunching  the  frozen  bark  with  famished 


FAREWELL.  329 

eagerness.  Philip  thrust  his  sabre  into  the  sheath,  caught  at 
the  bridle  of  the  precious  animal  that  he  had  managed  to 
keep  for  so  long,  and  drew  her  away  from  the  miserable  fod- 
der that  she  was  bolting  with  apparent  relish. 

"  Come  along,  Bichette  !  come  along  !  It  lies  with  you 
now,  my  beauty,  to  save  Stephanie's  life.  There,  wait  a  little 
longer,  and  they  will  let  us  lie  down  and  die,  no  doubt;" 
and  Philip,  wrapped  in  a  pelisse,  to  which  doubtless  he  owed 
his  life  and  energies,  began  to  run,  stamping  his  feet  on  the 
frozen  snow  to  keep  them  warm.  He  was  scarcely  five  hundred 
paces  away  before  he  saw  a  great  fire  blazing  on  the  spot  where 
he  had  left  his  carriage  that  morning  with  an  old  soldier  to 
guard  it.  A  dreadful  misgiving  seized  upon  him.  Many  a 
man  under  the  influence  of  a  powerful  feeling  during  the 
Retreat  summoned  up  energy  for  his  friend's  sake  when  he 
would  not  have  exerted  himself  to  save  his  own  life ;  so  it  was 
with  Philip.  He  soon  neared  a  hollow,  where  he  had  left  a 
carriage  sheltered  from  the  cannonade,  a  carriage  that  held  a 
young  woman,  his  playmate  in  childhood,  dearer  to  him  than 
any  one  else  on  earth. 

Some  thirty  stragglers  were  sitting  round  a  tremendous 
blaze,  which  they  kept  up  with  logs  of  wood,  planks,  wrenched 
from  the  floors  of  the  caissons,  and  wheels,  and  panels,  from 
carriage  bodies.  These  had  been,  doubtless,  among  the  last 
to  join  the  sea  of  fires,  huts,  and  human  faces  that  filled  the 
great  furrow  in  the  land  between  Studzianka  and  the  fatal 
river,  a  restless  living  sea  of  almost  imperceptibly  moving  fig- 
ures, that  sent  up  a  smothered  hum  of  sound  blended  with 
frightful  shrieks.  It  seemed  that  hunger  and  despair  had 
driven  these  forlorn  creatures  to  take  forcible  possession  of 
the  carriage,  for  the  old  general  and  his  young  wife,  whom 
they  had  found  warmly  wrapped  in  pelisses  and  traveling 
cloaks,  were  now  crouching  on  the  earth  beside  the  fire,  and 
one  of  the  carriage  doors  was  broken. 

As  soon  as  the  group  of  stragglers  round  the  fire  heard  the 


330  FAREWELL. 

footfall  of  the  major's  horse,  a  frenzied  yell  of  hunger  went  up 
from  them.     "  A  horse  !  "  they  cried.     "  A  horse  !  " 

All  the  voices  went  up  as  one  voice. 

"  Back  !  back  !  Lookout !  "  shouted  two  or  three  of  them, 
leveling  their  muskets  at  the  animal. 

"  I  will  pitch  you  neck  and  crop  into  your  fire,  you  black- 
guards !  "  cried  Philip  springing  in  front  of  the  mare.  "  There 
are  dead  horses  lying  up  yonder ;  go  and  look  for  them  !  " 

"What  a  rum  customer  the  officer  is!  Once,  twice,  will 
you  get  out  of  the  way  ?  "  returned  a  giant  grenadier.  "  You 
won't?     All  right  then,  just  as  you  please." 

A  woman's  shriek  rang  out  above  the  report.  Luckily, 
none  of  the  bullets  hit  Philip ;  but  poor  Bichette  lay  in  the 
agony  of  death.  Three  of  the  men  came  up  and  put  an  end 
to  her  with  thrusts  of  the  bayonet. 

"  Cannibals  !  leave  me  the  rug  and  my  pistols,"  cried 
Philip  in  desperation. 

*'  Oh  !  the  pistols  if  you  like  ;  but  as  for  the  rug,  there  is  a 
fellow  yonder  who  has  had  nothing  to  '  wet  his  whistle '  these 
two  days,  and  is  shivering  in  his  coat  of  cobwebs,  and  that's 
our  general." 

Philip  looked  up  and  saw  a  man  with  worn-out  shoes  and  a 
dozen  rents  in  his  trousers  ;  the  only  covering  for  his  head 
was  a  ragged  foraging  cap,  white  with  rime.  He  said  no 
more  after  that,  but  snatched  up  his  pistols. 

Five  of  the  men  dragged  the  mare  to  the  fire,  and  began  to 
cut  up  the  carcass  as  dexterously  as  any  journeymen  butchers 
in  Paris.  The  scraps  of  meat  were  distributed  and  flung  upon 
the  coals,  and  the  whole  process  was  magically  swift.  Philip 
went  over  to  the  woman  who  had  given  the  cry  of  terror  when 
she  recognized  his  danger,  and  sat  down  by  her  side.  She 
sat  motionless  upon  a  cushion  taken  from  the  carriage,  warm- 
ing herself  at  the  blaze  ;  she  said  no  word,  and  gazed  at  him 
without  a  smile.  He  saw  beside  her  the  soldier  whom  he  had 
left  mounting  guard  over  the  carriage ;  the  poor  fellow  had 


FAREWELL.  331 

been  wounded  ;  he  had  been  overpowered  by  numbers,  and 
forced  to  surrender  to  the  stragglers  who  had  set  upon  him, 
and,  like  a  dog  who  defends  his  master's  dinner  till  the  last 
moment,  he  had  taken  his  share  of  the  spoil,  and  had  made 
a  sort  of  cloak  for  himself  out  of  a  sheet.  At  that  particular 
moment  he  was  busy  toasting  a  piece  of  horseflesh,  and  in  his 
face  the  major  saw  a  gleeful  anticipation  of  the  coming  feast. 

The  Comte  de  Vandieres,  who  seemed  to  have  grown  quite 
childish  in  the  last  few  days,  sat  on  a  cushion  close  to  his 
wife,  and  stared  into  the  fire.  He  was  only  just  beginning 
to  shake  off  his  torpor  under  the  influence  of  the  warmth. 
He  had  been  no  more  affected  by  Philip's  arrival  and  danger 
than  by  the  fight  and  subsequent  pillage  of  his  traveling  car- 
riage. 

At  first  Sucy  caught  the  young  Countess'  hand  in  his,  trying 
to  express  his  affection  for  her,  and  the  pain  that  it  gave  him 
to  see  her  reduced  like  this  to  the  last  extremity  of  misery ; 
but  he  said  nothing  as  he  sat  by  her  side  on  the  thawing  heap 
of  snow,  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  pleasure  of  the  sensation  of 
warmth,  forgetful  of  danger,  forgetful  of  all  things  else  in  the 
world.  In  spite  of  himself  his  face  expanded  with  an  almost 
fatuous  expression  of  satisfaction,  and  he  waited  impatiently 
till  the  scrap  of  horseflesh  that  had  fallen  to  his  soldier's 
share  should  be  cooked.  The  smell  of  the  charred  flesh  stim- 
ulated his  hunger.  Hunger  clamored  within  him  and  silenced 
his  heart,  his  courage,  and  his  love.  He  coolly  looked  round 
on  the  results  of  the  spoliation  of  his  carriage.  Not  a  man 
seated  round  the  fire  but  had  shared  the  booty,  the  rugs, 
cushions,  pelisses,  dresses — articles  of  clothing  that  belonged 
to  the  Count  and  Countess  or  to  himself.  Philip  turned  to 
see  if  anything  worth  taking  was  left  in  the  berline.  He 
saw  by  the  light  of  the  flames,  gold,  and  diamonds,  and 
silver  lying  scattered  about ;  no  one  had  cared  to  appro- 
priate the  least  particle.  There  was  something  hideous  in 
the  silence   among  those    human  creatures    round   the  fire; 


332  FAREWELL. 

none  of  them  spoke,  none  of  them  stirred,  save  to  do  such 
things  as  each  considered  necessary  for  his  own  comfort. 

It  was  a  grotesque  misery.  The  men's  faces  were  warped 
and  disfigured  with  the  cold,  and  plastered  over  with  a 
layer  of  mud  ;  you  could  see  the  thickness  of  the  mask  by 
the  channel  traced  down  their  cheeks  by  the  tears  that  ran 
from  their  eyes,  and  their  long  slovenly-kept  beards  added 
to  the  hideousness  of  their  appearance.  Some  were  wrapped 
round  in  women's  shawls,  others  in  horse-cloths,  dirty 
blankets,  rags  stiffened  with  melting  hoar-frost;  here  and 
there  a  man  wore  a  boot  on  one  foot  and  a  shoe  on  the 
other ;  in  fact,  there  was  not  one  of  them  but  wore  some 
ludicrously  odd  costume.  But  the  men  themselves  with  such 
matter  for  jest  about  them  were  gloomy  and  taciturn. 

The  silence  was  unbroken  save  by  the  crackling  of  the 
wood,  the  roaring  of  the  flames,  the  far-off  hum  of  the  camp, 
and  the  sound  of  sabres  hacking  at  the  carcass  of  the  mare. 
Some  of  the  hungriest  of  the  men  were  still  cutting  tit-bits 
for  themselves.  A  few  miserable  creatures,  more  weary  than 
the  others,  slept  outright  ;  and  if  they  happened  to  roll  into 
the  fire,  no  one  pulled  them  back.  With  cut-and-dried  logic 
their  fellows  argued  that  if  they  were  not  dead,  a  scorching 
ought  to  be  sufficient  warning  to  quit  and  seek  out  more  com- 
fortable quarters.  If  the  poor  wretch  woke  to  find  himself  on 
fire,  he  was  burned  to  death,  and  nobody  pitied  him.  Here 
and  there  the  men  exchanged  glances,  as  if  to  excuse  their 
indifference  by  the  carelessness  of  the  rest ;  the  thing  hap- 
pened twice  under  the  young  Countess'  eyes,  and  she  uttered 
no  sound.  When  all  the  scraps  of  horseflesh  had  been 
broiled  upon  the  coals,  they  were  devoured  with  a  ravenous 
greediness  that  would  have  been  disgusting  in  wild  beasts. 

"  And  now  we  have  seen  thirty  infantry-men  on  one  horse 
for  the  first  time  in  our  lives  !"  cried  the  grenadier  who  had 
shot  the  mare,  the  one  solitary  joke  that  sustained  the  French- 
man's reputation  for  wit. 


FAREWELL.  333 

Before  long  the  poor  fellows  huddled  themselves  up  in  their 
clothes,  and  lay  down  on  planks  of  timber,  on  anything  but 
the  bare  snow,  and  slept — heedless  of  the  morrow.  Major  de 
Sucy  having  warmed  himself  and  satisfied  his  hunger,  fought 
in  vain  against  the  drowsiness  that  weighed  upon  his  eyes. 
During  this  brief  struggle  he  gazed  at  the  sleeping  girl  who 
had  turned  her  face  to  the  fire,  so  that  he  could  see  her  closed 
eyelids  and  part  of  her  forehead.  She  was  wrapped  round  in 
a  furred  pelisse  and  a  coarse  horseman's  cloak,  her  head  lay  on 
a  blood-stained  cushion  ;  a  tall  astrakhan  cap  tied  over  her 
head  by  a  handkerchief  knotted  under  the  chin  protected  her 
face  as  much  as  possible  from  the  cold,  and  she  had  tucked  up 
her  feet  in  the  cloak.  As  she  lay  curled  up  in  this  fashion,  she 
bore  no  likeness  to  any  creature. 

Was  this  the  lowest  of  camp-followers?  Was  this  the 
charming  woman,  the  pride  of  her  lover's  heart,  the  queen  of 
many  a  Parisian  ballroom  ?  Alas  !  even  for  the  eyes  of  this 
most  devoted  friend,  there  was  no  discernible  trace  of  woman- 
hood in  that  bundle  of  rags  and  linen,  and  the  cold  was 
mightier  than  the  love  in  a  woman's  heart. 

Then  for  the  major  the  husband  and  wife  came  to  be  like 
two  distant  dots  seen  through  the  thick  veil  that  the  most 
irresistible  kind  of  slumber  spread  over  his  eyes.  It  all 
seemed  to  be  part  of  a  dream — the  leaping  flames,  the  recum- 
bent figures,  the  awful  cold  that  lay  in  wait  for  them  three 
paces  away  from  the  warmth  of  the  fire  that  glowed  for  a 
little  while.  One  thought  that  could  not  be  stifled  haunted 
Philip — "  If  I  go  to  sleep,  we  shall  all  die ;  I  will  not  sleep," 
he  said  to  himself. 

He  slept.  After  an  hour's  slumber  M.  de  Sucy  was  awak- 
ened by  a  hideous  uproar  and  the  sound  of  an  explosion.  The 
remembrances  of  his  duty,  of  the  danger  of  his  beloved, 
rushed  upon  his  mind  with  a  sudden  shock.  He  uttered  a 
cry  like  the  growl  of  a  wild  beast.  He  and  his  servant  stood 
upright  above  the  rest.     They  saw  a  sea  of  fire  in  the  dark- 


334  FAREWELL. 

ness,  and  against  it  moving  masses  of  human  figures.  Flames 
were  devouring  the  huts  and  tents.  Despairing  shrieks  and 
yelling  cries  reached  their  ears ;  they  saw  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  wild  and  desperate  faces ;  and  through  this 
inferno  a  column  of  soldiers  was  cutting  its  way  to  the  bridge, 
between  two  hedges  of  dead  bodies. 

"  Our  rearguard  is  in  full  retreat,"  cried  the  major.  "  There 
is  no  hope  left !  " 

"I  have  spared  your  traveling  carriage,  Philip,"  said  a 
friendly  voice. 

Sucy  turned  and  saw  the  young  aide-de-camp  by  the  light 
of  the  flames. 

"  Oh,  it  is  all  over  with  us,"  he  answered.  "They  have 
eaten  my  horse.  And  how  am  I  to  make  this  sleepy  general 
and  his  wife  stir  a  step?  " 

"  Take  a  brand,  Philip,  and  threaten  them." 

"Threaten  the  Countess? " 

"Good-bye,"  cried  the  aide-de-camp;  "I  have  only  just 
time  to  get  across  that  unlucky  river,  and  go  I  must,  there  is 

my  mother  in  France  ! What  a  night !     This  herd  of 

wretches  would  rather  lie  here  in  the  snow,  and  most  of  them 

would  sooner  be  buried  alive  than  get  up It  is  four  o'clock, 

Philip  !  In  two  hours  the  Russians  will  begin  to  move,  and 
you  will  see  the  Beresina  covered  with  corpses  a  second  time, 
I  can  tell  you.  You  haven't  a  horse,  and  you  cannot  carry 
the  Countess,  so  come  along  with  me,"  he  went  on,  taking 
his  friend  by  the  arm. 

"  My  dear  fellow,  how  am  I  to  leave  Stephanie  !  " 

Major  de  Sucy  grasped  the  Countess,  set  her  on  her  feet, 
and  shook  her  roughly ;  he  was  in  despair.  He  compelled 
her  to  wake,  and  she  stared   at  him  with  dull  fixed  eyes. 

"  Stephanie,  we  must  go,  or  we  shall  die  here  !  " 

For  all  answer  the  Countess  tried  to  sink  down  again  and 
sleep  on  the  earth.  The  aide-de-camp  snatched  a  brand  from 
the  lire  and  shook  it  in  her  face. 


FARE  WELL.  335 

"We  must  save  her  in  spite  of  herself,"  cried  Philip,  and 
he  carried  her  in  his  arms  to  the  carriage.  He  came  back  to 
entreat  his  friend  to  help  him,  and  the  two  young  men  took 
the  old  general  and  put  him  beside  his  wife,  without  knowing 
whether  he  were  alive  or  dead.  The  major  rolled  the  men 
over  as  they  crouched  on  the  earth,  took  away  the  plundered 
clothing,  and  heaped  it  upon  the  husband  and  wife,  then  he 
flung  some  of*  the  broiled  fragments  of  horseflesh  into  a 
corner  of  the  carriage. 

"Now,  what  do  you  mean  to  do?"  asked  his  friend,  the 
aide-de-camp. 

"  Drag  them  along!  "  answered  Sucy. 

1 '  You  are  mad  !  ' ' 

"You  are  right  !  "  exclaimed  Philip,  folding  his  arms  on 
his  breast. 

Suddenly  a  desperate  plan  occurred  to  him. 

"  Look  you  here  !  "  he  said,  grasping  his  sentinel  by  the 
un wounded  arm,  "  I  leave  her  in  your  care  for  one  hour.  Bear 
in  mind  that  you  must  die  sooner  than  let  any  one,  no  matter 
whom,  come  near  the  carriage  !  " 

The  major  seized  a  handful  of  the  lady's  diamonds,  drew  his 
sabre,  and  violently  battered  those  who  seemed  to  him  to  be  the 
bravest  among  the  sleepers.  By  this  means  he  succeeded  in 
rousing  the  gigantic  grenadier  and  a  couple  of  men  whose 
rank  and  regiment  were  undiscoverable. 

"It  is  all  up  with  us  !  "  he  cried. 

"Of  course  it  is,"  returned  the  grenadier;  "but  that  is  all 
one  to  me." 

"Very  well  then,  if  die  you  must,  isn't  it  better  to  sell 
your  life  for  a  pretty  woman,  and  stand  a  chance  of  going 
back  to  France  again  ?  " 

"  I  would  rather  go  to  sleep,"  said  one  of  the  men,  drop- 
ping down  into  the  snow ;  "  and  if  you  worry  me  again,  major, 
I  shall  stick  my  toasting-iron  into  your  belly  !  " 

"What  is  it  all  about,  sir?"  asked  the  grenadier.     "The 


336  FARE  WELL. 

man's  drunk.  He  is  a  Parisian,  and  likes  to  lie  in  the  lap  of 
luxury." 

"  You  shall  have  these,  good  fellow,"  said  the  major,  hold- 
ing out  a  river  of  diamonds,  "  if  you  will  follow  me  and 
fight  like  a  madman.  The  Russians  are  not  ten  minutes  away  ; 
they  have  horses ;  we  will  march  up  to  the  nearest  battery 
and  carry  off  two  stout  ones." 

"  How  about  the  sentinels,  major?  " 

"  One  of  us  three "  he  began  ;  then  he  turned  from  the 

soldier  and  looked  at  the  aide-de-camp.  "  You  are  coming, 
aren't  you,  Hippolyte?" 

Hippolyte  nodded  assent. 

"One  of  us,"  the  major  went  on,  "will  look  after  the 
sentry.  Besides,  perhaps  those  blessed  Russians  are  also  fast 
asleep." 

"  All  right,  major ;  you  are  a  good  sort !  But  will  you  take 
me  in  your  carriage?"  asked  the  grenadier. 

"  Yes,  if  you  don't  leave  your  bones  up  yonder.  If  I  come 
to  grief,  promise  me,  you  two,  that  you  will  do  everything  in 
your  power  to  save  the  Countess." 

"All  right,"  said  the  grenadier. 

They  set  out  for  the  Russian  lines,  taking  the  direction  of 
the  batteries  that  had  so  cruelly  raked  the  mass  of  miserable 
creatures  huddled  together  by  the  river  bank.  A  few  minutes 
later  the  hoofs  of  two  galloping  horses  rang  on  the  frozen 
snow,  and  the  awakened  battery  fired  a  volley  that  passed 
over  the  heads  of  the  sleepers ;  the  hoof-beats  rattled  so  fast 
on  the  iron  ground  that  they  sounded  like  the  hammering  in 
a  smithy.  The  generous  aide-de-camp  had  fallen  ;  the  stalwart 
grenadier  had  come  off  safe  and  sound;  and  Philip  himself 
had  received  a  bayonet  thrust  in  the  shoulder  while  defending 
his  friend.  Notwithstanding  his  wound,  he  clung  to  his  horse's 
mane,  and  gripped  him  with  his  knees  so  tightly  that  the 
animal  was  held  as  in  a  vice. 

"God  be  praised!"   cried   the   major,  when   he  saw  his 


FAREWELL.  337 

soldier  still  on  the  spot,  and  the  carriage  standing  where  he 
had  left  it. 

"  If  you  do  the  right  thing  by  me,  sir,  you  will  get  me  the 
cross  for  this.  We  have  treated  them  to  a  sword  dance  to  a 
pretty  tune  from  the  rifle,  eh?" 

"  We  have  done  nothing  yet  !  Let  us  put  the  horses  in. 
Take  hold  of  these  cords." 

"  They  are  not  long  enough." 

"All  right,  grenadier,  just  go  and  overhaul  those  fellows 
sleeping  there  ;   take  their  shawls,  sheets,  anything " 

"I  say!  the  rascal  is  dead,"  cried  the  grenadier,  as  he 
plundered  the  first  man  who  came  to  hand.  "  Why,  they  are 
all  dead  !   how  queer!  " 

"All  of  them?" 

"  Yes,  every  one.  It  looks  as  though  horseflesh  on  snow 
was  indigestible." 

Philip  shuddered  at  the  words.  The  night  had  grown 
twice  as  cold  as  before. 

"  Great  heaven  !  to  lose  her  when  I  have  saved  her  life  a 
score  of  times  already." 

He  shook  the  Countess.  "Stephanie!  Stephanie!"  he 
cried. 

She  opened  her  eyes. 

"  We  are  saved,  madame  !  V 

"  Saved  !  "  she  echoed,  and  fell  back  again. 

The  horses  were  harnessed  after  a  fashion  at  last.  The 
major  held  his  sabre  in  his  unwounded  hand,  took  the  reins 
in  the  other,  saw  to  his  pistols,  and  sprang  on  one  of  the 
horses,  while  the  grenadier  mounted  the  other.  The  old  sen- 
tinel had  been  pushed  into  the  carriage,  and  lay  across  the 
knees  of  the  general  and  the  Countess ;  his  feet  were  frozen. 
Urged  on  by  blows  from  the  flat  of  the  sabre,  the  horses 
dragged  the  carriage  at  a  mad  gallop  down  to  the  plain, 
where  endless  difficulties  awaited  them.  Before  long  it  became 
almost  impossible  to  advance  without  crushing  sleeping  men, 
22 


33S  FARE  WELL. 

women,  and  even  children  at  every  step,  all  of  whom  declined 
to  stir  when  the  grenadier  awakened  them.  In  vain  M.  de 
Sucy  looked  for  the  track  that  the  rearguard  had  cut  through 
this  dense  crowd  of  human  beings ;  there  was  no  more  sign 
of  their  passage  than  of  the  wake  of  a  ship  in  the  sea.  The 
horses  could  only  move  at  a  foot-pace,  and  were  stopped  most 
frequently  by  soldiers,  who  threatened  to  kill  them. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  get  there?  "  asked  the  grenadier. 

"Yes,  if  it  costs  every  drop  of  blood  in  my  body!  if  it 
costs  the  whole  world  !  "  the  major  answered. 

"  Forward,  then  ! — —  You  can't  have  the  omelette  without 
breaking  eggs."  And  the  grenadier  of  the  Garde  urged  on 
the  horses  over  the  prostrate  bodies  and  upset  the  bivouacs ; 
the  blood-stained  wheels  ploughing  that  field  of  faces  left  a 
double  furrow  of  dead.  But  in  justice  it  should  be  said  that 
he  never  ceased  to  thunder  out  his  warning  cry,  "Carrion! 
lookout !  " 

"  Poor  wretches  !  "  exclaimed  the  major. 

"  Bah  !  That  way,  or  the  cold,  or  the  cannon  !  "  said  the 
grenadier,  goading  on  the  horses  with  the  point  of  his  sword. 

Then  came  the  catastrophe,  which  must  have  happened 
sooner  but  for  miraculous  good  fortune ;  the  carriage  was 
overturned,  and  all  further  progress  was  stopped  at  once. 

"  I  expected  as  much  !  "  exclaimed  the  imperturable  grena- 
dier.   "  Oho  !  he  is  dead  !  "  he  added,  looking  at  his  comrade. 

"  Poor  Laurent !  "  said  the  major. 

"  Laurent !     Wasn't  he  in  the  Fifth  Chasseurs?" 

"Yes." 

"My  own  cousin.  Pshaw!  this  beastly  life  is  not  so 
pleasant  that  one  need  be  sorry  for  him  as  things  go." 

But  all  this  time  the  carriage  lay  overturned,  and  the  horses 
were  only  released  after  great  and  irreparable  loss  of  time. 
The  shock  had  been  so  violent  that  the  Countess  had  been 
awakened  by  it,  and  the  subsequent  commotion  aroused  her 
from  her  stupor.     She  shook  off  the  rugs  and  rose. 


FARE  WELL.  339 

"Where  are  we,  Philip?"  she  asked  in  musical  tones,  as 
she  looked  about  her. 

"About  five  hundred  paces  from  the  bridge.  We  are  just 
about  to  cross  the  Beresina.  When  we  are  on  the  other  side, 
Stephanie,  I  will  not  tease  you  any  more ;  I  will  let  you  go  to 
sleep ;  we  shall  be  in  safety,  we  can  go  on  to  Wilna  in  peace. 
God  grant  that  you  may  never  know  what  your  life  has  cost !  " 

"  You  are  wounded  !  " 

"A  mere  trifle." 

The  hour  of  doom  had  come.  The  Russian  cannon  an- 
nounced the  day.  The  Russians  were  in  possession  of  Stud- 
zianka,  and  thence  were  raking  the  plain  with  grapeshot ;  and 
by  the  first  dim  light  of  the  dawn  the  major  saw  two  columns 
moving  and  forming  above  on  the  heights.  Then  a  cry  of 
horror  went  up  from  the  crowd,  and  in  a  moment  every  one 
sprang  to  his  feet.  Each  instinctively  felt  his  danger,  and  all 
made  a  rush  for  the  bridge,  surging  toward  it  like  a  wave. 

Then  the  Russians  came  down  upon  them,  swift  as  a  con- 
flagration. Men,  women,  children,  and  horses  all  crowded 
towards  the  river.  Luckily  for  the  major  and  the  Countess, 
they  were  still  at  some  distance  from  the  bank.  General  Eble 
had  just  set  fire  to  the  bridge  on  the  other  side ;  but  in  spite 
of  all  the  warnings  given  to  those  who  rushed  towards  the 
chance  of  salvation,  not  one  among  them  could  or  would 
draw  back.  The  overladen  bridge  gave  way,  and  not  only  so, 
the  impetus  of  the  frantic  living  wave  towards  that  fatal  bank 
was  such  that  a  dense  crowd  of  human  beings  was  thrust  into 
the  water  as  if  by  an  avalanche.  The  sound  of  a  single  human 
cry  could  not  be  distinguished  ;  there  was  a  dull  crash  as  if  an 
enormous  stone  had  fallen  into  the  water,  and  the  Beresina 
was  covered  with  corpses. 

The  violent  recoil  of  those  in  front,  striving  to  escape  this 
death,  brought  them  into  hideous  collision  with  those  behind 
them,  who  were  pressing  towards  the  bank,  and  many  were 
suffocated  and  crushed.     The  Comte  and  Comtesse  de  Van- 


340  FARE  WELL. 

dieres  owed  their  lives  to  the  carriage.  The  horses  that  had 
trampled  and  crushed  so  many  dying  men  were  crushed  and 
trampled  to  death  in  their  turn  by  the  human  maelstrom 
which  eddied  from  the  bank.  Sheer  physical  strength  saved 
the  major  and  the  grenadier.  They  killed  others  in  self- 
defense.  That  wild  sea  of  human  faces  and  living  bodies, 
surging  to  and  fro  as  by  one  impulse,  left  the  bank  of  the 
Beresina  clear  for  a  few  moments.  The  multitude  had  hurled 
themselves  back  on  the  plain.  Some  few  men  sprang  down 
from  the  banks  towards  the  river,  not  so  much  with  any  hope 
of  reaching  the  opposite  shore,  which  for  them  meant  France, 
as  from  dread  of  the  wastes  of  Siberia.  For  some  bold  spirits 
despair  became  a  panoply.  An  officer  leaped  from  hummock 
to  hummock  of  ice,  and  reached  the  other  shore  ;  one  of  the 
soldiers  scrambled  over  miraculously  on  the  piles  of  dead 
bodies  and  drift  ice.  But  the  immense  multitude  left  behind 
saw  at  last  that  the  Russians  would  not  slaughter  twenty  thou- 
sand unarmed  men,  too  numb  with  the  cold  to  attempt  to 
resist  them,  and  each  awaited  his  fate  with  dreadful  apathy. 
By  this  time  the  major  and  his  grenadier,  the  old  general  and 
his  wife  were  left  to  themselves  not  very  far  from  the  place 
where  the  bridge  had  been.  All  four  stood  dry-eyed  and 
silent  among  the  heaps  of  dead.  A  few  able-bodied  men  and 
one  or  two  officers,  who  had  recovered  all  their  energies  at 
this  crisis,  gathered  about  them.  The  group  was  sufficiently 
large  ;  there  were  about  fifty  men  all  told.  A  couple  of  hun- 
dred paces  from  them  stood  the  wreck  of  the  artillery  bridge, 
which  had  broken  down  the  day  before ;  the  major  saw  this, 
and  "  Let  us  make  a  raft  !  "  he  cried. 

The  words  were  scarcely  out  of  his  mouth  before  the  whole 
group  hurried  to  the  ruins  of  the  bridge.  A  crowd  of  men 
began  to  pick  up  iron  clamps  and  to  hunt  for  planks  and  ropes 
— for  all  the  materials  for  a  raft,  in  short.  A  score  of  armed 
men  and  officers,  under  command  of  the  major,  stood  on 
guard  to  protect  the  workers  from  any  desperate  attempt  on 


FAREWELL.  341 

the  part  of  the  multitude  if  they  should  guess  their  design. 
The  longing  for  freedom,  which  inspires  prisoners  to  accom- 
plish impossibilities,  cannot  be  compared  with  the  hope  which 
lent  energy  at  that  moment  to  these  forlorn  Frenchmen. 

"The  Russians  are  upon  us!  Here  are  the  Russians!" 
the  guard  shouted  to  the  workers. 

The  timbers  creaked,  the  raft  grew  larger,  stronger,  and 
more  substantial.  Generals,  colonels,  and  common  soldiers  all 
alike  bent  beneath  the  weight  of  wagon-wheels,  chains,  coils 
of  rope,  and  planks  of  timber;  it  was  a  modern  realization  of 
the  building  of  Noah's  ark.  The  young  Countess,  sitting  by 
her  husband's  side,  looked  on,  regretful  that  she  could  do 
nothing  to  aid  the  workers,  though  she  helped  to  knot  the 
lengths  of  rope  together. 

At  last  the  raft  was  finished.  Forty  men  launched  it  out 
into  the  river,  while  ten  of  the  soldiers  held  the  ropes  that 
must  keep  it  moored  to  the  shore.  The  moment  that  they 
saw  their  handiwork  floating  on  the  Beresina,  they  sprang 
down  on  to  it  from  the  bank  with  callous  selfishness.  The 
major,  dreading  the  frenzy  of  the  first  rush,  held  back  Ste- 
phanie and  the  general ;  but  a  shudder  ran  through  him  when 
he  saw  the  landing  place  black  with  people,  and  men  crowd- 
ing down  like  play-goers  into  the  pit  of  a  theatre. 

"  It  was  I  who  thought  of  the  raft,  you  savages  !  "  he  cried. 
"I  have  saved  your  lives,  and  you  will  not  make  room  for  me  !  " 

A  confused  murmur  was  the  only  answer.  The  men  at  the 
edge  took  up  stout  poles,  thrust  them  against  the  bank  with 
all  their  might,  so  as  to  shove  the  raft  out  and  gain  an  impetus 
at  its  starting  upon  a  journey  across  a  sea  of  floating  ice  and 
dead  bodies  towards  the  other  shore. 

"God's  thunder!  I  will  knock  some  of  you  off  into  the 
water  if  you  don't  make  room  for  the  major  and  his  two 
companions,"  shouted  the  grenadier.  He  raised  his  sabre 
threateningly,  delayed  the  departure,  and  made  the  men  stand 
closer  together,  in  spite  of  threatening  yells. 


342  FAREWELL. 

"I   shall   fall   in! I   shall  go  overboard! "   the 

fellows  shouted. 

"Let  us  start!     Put  off!  " 

The  major  gazed  with  tearless  eyes  at  the  woman  he  loved ; 
an  impulse  of  sublime  resignation  raised  her  eyes  to  heaven. 

"  To  die  with  you!  "  she  said. 

In  the  situation  of  the  folk  upon  the  raft  there  was  a  certain 
comic  element.  They  might  utter  hideous  yells,  but  not  one 
of  them  dared  to  oppose  the  grenadier,  for  they  were  packed 
together  so  tightly  that  if  one  man  were  knocked  down,  the 
whole  raft  might  capsize.  At  this  delicate  crisis,  a  captain 
tried  to  rid  himself  of  one  of  his  neighbors ;  the  man  saw  the 
hostile  intention  of  his  officer,  collared  him,  and  pitched  him 

overboard.      "Aha!       The  duck   has  a  mind   to  drink 

Over  with  you  !  There  is  room  for  two  now  !  "  he  shouted. 
"  Quick,  major  !  throw  your  little  woman  over,  and  come ! 
Never  mind  that  old  dotard  ;  he  will  drop  off  to-morrow!  " 

"Be  quick  !  "  cried  a  voice,  made  up  of  a  hundred  voices. 

"  Come,  major !  Those  fellows  are  making  a  fuss,  and 
well  they  may!  " 

The  Comte  de  Vandieres  flung  off  his  ragged  blankets,  and 
stood  before  them  in  his  general's  uniform. 

"  Let  us  save  the  Count,"  said  Philip. 

Stephanie  grasped  his  hand  tightly  in  hers,  flung  her  arms 
about,  and  clasped  him  close  in  an  agonized  embrace. 

"  Farewell !  "  she  said. 

Then  each  knew  the  other's  thoughts.  The  Comte  de 
Vandieres  recovered  his  energies  and  presence  of  mind  suffi- 
ciently to  jump  on  to  the  raft,  whither  Stephanie  followed 
him  after  one  last  look  at  Philip. 

"  Major,  won't  you  take  my  place  ?  I  do  not  care  a  straw 
for  life ;  I  have  neither  wife,  nor  child,  nor  mother  belonging 
to  me " 

"  I  give  them  into  your  charge/'  cried  the  major,  indicat- 
ing the  Count  and  his  wife. 


FAREWELL.  343 

"  Be  easy ;  I  will  take  as  much  care  of  them  as  of  the  apple 
of  my  eye," 

Philip  stood  stock-still  on  the  bank.  The  raft  sped  so 
violently  towards  the  opposite  shore  that  it  ran  aground  with 
a  violent  shock  to  all  on  board.  The  Count,  standing  on  the 
very  edge,  was  shaken  into  the  stream  ;  and  as  he  fell,  a  mass 
of  ice  swept  by  and  struck  off  his  head,  and  sent  it  flying  like 
a  ball. 

"  Hey  !  major  !  "  shouted  the  grenadier. 

"  Farewell !  "  a  woman's  voice  called  aloud. 

An  icy  shiver  of  dread  ran  through  Philip  de  Sucy,  and  he 
dropped  down  where  he  stood;  overcome  with  cold  and  sorrow 
and  weariness. 

"  My  poor  niece  went  out  of  her  mind,"  the  doctor  added 
after  a  brief  pause.  "Ah  !  monsieur,"  he  went  on,  grasping 
M.  d'Albon's  hand,  "what  a  fearful  life  for  the  poor  little 
thing,  so  young,  so  delicate  !  An  unheard-of  misfortune 
separated  her  from  that  grenadier  of  the  Garde  (Fleuriot  by 
name),  and  for  two  years  she  was  dragged  on  after  the  army, 
the  laughing-stock  of  a  rabble  of  outcasts.  She  went  barefoot, 
I  heard,  ill-clad,  neglected,  and  starved  for  months  at  a  time; 
sometimes  confined  in  a  hospital,  sometimes  living  like  a 
hunted  animal.  God  alone  knows  all  the  misery  which  she 
endured,  and  yet  she  lives.  She  was  shut  up  in  a  mad-house 
in  a  little  German  town,  while  her  relations,  believing  her  to 
be  dead,  were  dividing  her  property  here  in  France. 

"In  1816  the  grenadier  Fleuriot  recognized  her  in  an  inn 
in  Strasbourg.  She  had  just  managed  to  escape  from  cap- 
tivity. Some  peasants  told  him  that  the  Countess  had  lived 
for  a  whole  month  in  a  forest,  and  how  that  they  had  tracked 
her  and  tried  to  catch  her  without  success. 

"  I  was  at  that  time  not  many  leagues  from  Strasbourg;  and 
hearing  the  talk  about  this  girl  in  the  woods,  I  wished  to  verify 
the  strange  facts  that  had  given  rise  to  absurd  stories.     What 


344  FAREWELL. 

was  my  feeling  when  I  beheld  the  Countess  ?  Fleuriot  told 
me  all  that  he  knew  of  the  piteous  story.  I  took  the  poor 
fellow  with  my  niece  into  Auvergne,  and  there  I  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  lose  him.  He  had  some  ascendency  over  Mme.  de 
Vandieres.  He  alone  succeeded  in  persuading  her  to  wear 
clothes ;  and  in  those  days  her  one  word  of  human  speech — 
Farewell — she  seldom  uttered.  Fleuriot  set  himself  to  the 
task  of  awakening  certain  associations;  but  there  he  failed 
completely;  he  drew  that  one  sorrowful  word  from  her  a  little 
more  frequently,  that  was  all.  But  the  old  grenadier  could 
amuse   her,   and  devoted   himself  to    playing  with  her,  and 

through  him  I  hoped;  but "  here  Stephanie's  uncle  broke 

off.     After  a  moment  he  went  on  again. 

"  Here  she  has  found  another  creature  with  whom  she 
seems  to  have  an  understanding — an  idiot  peasant  girl,  who 
once,  in  spite  of  her  plainness  and  imbecility,  fell  in  love  with 
a  mason.  The  mason  thought  of  marrying  her  because  she 
had  a  little  bit  of  land,  and  for  a  whole  year  poor  Genevieve 
was  the  happiest  of  living  creatures.  She  dressed  in  her  best, 
and  danced  on  Sundays  with  Dallot ;  she  understood  love  ; 
there  was  room  for  love  in  her  heart  and  brain.  But  Dallot 
thought  better  of  it.  He  found  another  girl  who  had  all  her 
senses  and  rather  more  land  than  Genevieve,  and  he  forsook 
Genevieve  for  her.  Then  the  poor  thing  lost  the  little  intel- 
ligence that  love  had  developed  in  her;  she  can  do  nothing 
now  but  cut  grass  and  look  after  the  cattle.  My  niece  and 
the  poor  girl  are  in  some  sort  bound  to  each  other  by  the  in- 
visible chain  of  their  common  destiny,  and  by  their  madness 
due  to  the  same  cause.  Just  come  here  a  moment;  look  !  " 
and  Stephanie's  uncle  led  the  Marquis  d'Albon  to  the  window. 

There,  in  fact,  the  magistrate  beheld  the  pretty  Countess 
sitting  on  the  ground  at  Genevieve's  knee,  while  the  peasant 
girl  was  wholly  absorbed  in  combing  out  Stephanie's  long, 
black  hair  with  a  huge  comb.  The  Countess  submitted  her- 
self to  this,  uttering  low  smothered  cries  that  expressed  her 


FAREWELL.  345 

enjoyment  of  the  sensation  of  physical  comfort.  A  shudder 
ran  through  M.  d'Albon  as  he  saw  her  attitude  of  languid 
abandonment,  the  animal  supineness  that  revealed  an  utter 
lack  of  intelligence. 

"Oh!  Philip,  Philip!"  he  cried,  "past  troubles  are  as 
nothing.     Is  it  quite  hopeless?  "  he  asked. 

The  doctor  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven. 

"  Good-bye,  monsieur,"  said  M.  d'Albon,  pressing  the  old 
man's  hand.  "  My  friend  is  expecting  me  ;  you  will  see  him 
here  before  very  long." 

"Then  it  is  Stephanie  herself?"  cried  Sucy  when  the 
Marquis  had  spoken  the  first  few  words.  "  Ah  !  until  now  I 
did  not  feel  sure  !  "  he  added.  Tears  filled  the  dark  eyes 
that  were  wont  to  wear  a  stern  expression. 

"  Yes ;  she  is  the  Comtesse  de  Vandieres,"  his  friend  replied. 

The  colonel  started  up  and  hurriedly  began  to  dress. 

"Why,  Philip!"  cried  the  horrified  magistrate.  "Are 
you  going  mad  ?  " 

"  I  am  quite  well  now,"  said  the  colonel  simply.  "  This 
news  has  soothed  all  my  bitterest  grief;  what  pain  could  hurt 
me  while  I  think  of  Stephanie  ?  I  am  going  over  to  the 
Minorite  convent,  to  see  her  and  to  speak  to  her,  to  restore 
her  to  health  again.  She  is  free  ;  ah,  surely,  surely,  happi- 
ness will  smile  on  us,  or  there  is  no  Providence  above.  How 
can  you  think  that  she  could  hear  my  voice,  poor  Stephanie, 
and  not  recover  her  reason  ?  " 

"  She  has  seen  you  once  already,  and  she  did  not  recognize 
you,"  the  magistrate  answered  gently,  trying  to  suggest  some 
wholesome  fears  to  his  friend,  whose  hopes  were  visibly  too  higlv 

The  colonel  shuddered,  but  he  began  to  smile  again,  with 
a  slight  involuntary  gesture  of  incredulity.  Nobody  ventured 
to  oppose  his  plans,  and  a  few  hours  later  he  had  taken  up  his 
abode  in  the  old  priory,  to  be  near  the  doctor  and  the  Com- 
tesse de  Vandieres. 

M 


346  FAREWELL. 

"  Where  is  she  ?  "  he  cried  at  once. 

"  Hush  !  "  answered  M.  Fanjat,  Stephanie's  uncle.  "She 
is  sleeping.     Stay;  here  she  is." 

Philip  saw  the  poor  distraught  sleeper  crouching  on  a  stone 
bench  in  the  sun.  Her  thick  hair,  straggling  over  her  face, 
screened  it  from  the  glare  and  heat  ;  her  arms  dropped  lan- 
guidly to  the  earth  ;  she  lay  at  ease  as  gracefully  as  a  fawn, 
her  feet  tucked  up  beneath  her  ;  her  bosom  rose  and  fell  with 
her  even  breathing ;  there  was  the  same  transparent  white- 
ness as  of  porcelain  in  her  skin  and  complexion  that  we  so 
often  admire  in  children's  faces.  Genevieve  sat  there  motion- 
less, holding  a  spray  that  Stephanie  doubtless  had  brought 
down  from  the  top  of  one  of  the  tallest  poplars  ;  the  idiot  girl 
was  waving  the  green  branch  above  her,  driving  away  the  flies 
from  her  sleeping  companion,  and  gently  fanning  her. 

She  stared  at  M.  Fanjat  and  the  colonel  as  they  came  up; 
then,  like  a  dumb  animal  that  recognizes  its  master,  she 
slowly  turned  her  face  towards  the  Countess,  and  watched 
over  her  as  before,  showing  not  the  slightest  sign  of  intelli- 
gence or  of  astonishment.  The  air  was  scorching.  The  glit- 
tering particles  of  the  stone  bench  shone  like  sparks  of  fire  ; 
the  meadow  sent  up  the  quivering  vapors  that  hover  above 
the  grass  and  gleam  like  golden  dust  when  they  catch  the 
light,  but  Genevieve  did  not  seem  to  feel  the  raging  heat. 

The  colonel  wrung  M.  Fanjat's  hands;  the  tears  that  gath- 
ered in  the  soldier's  eyes  stole  down  his  cheeks,  and  fell  on 
the  grass  at  Stephanie's  feet. 

"Sir,"  said  her  uncle,  "for  these  two  years  my  heart  has 
been  broken  daily.  Before  very  long  you  will  be  as  I  am  ; 
if  you  do  not  weep,  you  will  not  feel  your  anguish  the  less." 

"You  have  taken  care  of  her  !  "  said  the  colonel,  and  jeal- 
ousy no  less  than  gratitude  could  be  read  in  his  eyes. 

The  two  men  understood  one  another.  They  grasped  each 
other  by  the  hand  again,  and  stood  motionless,  gazing  in 
admiration  at  the  serenity  that  slumber  had  brought  into  the 


FAREWELL.  347 

lovely  face  before  them.  Stephanie  heaved  a  sigh  from  time 
to  time,  and  this  sigh,  that  had  all  the  appearance  of  sensi- 
bility, made  the  unhappy  colonel  tremble  with  gladness. 

"  Alas  !  "  M.  Fanjat  said  gently,  "  do  not  deceive  yourself, 
monsieur ;  as  you  see  her  now,  she  is  in  full  possession  of 
such  reason  as  she  has." 

Those  who  have  sat  for  whole  hours  absorbed  in  the  delight 
of  watching  over  the  slumber  of  some  tenderly-beloved  one, 
whose  waking  eyes  will  smile  for  them,  will  doubtless  under- 
stand the  bliss  and  anguish  that  shook  the  colonel.  For  him 
this  slumber  was  an  illusion,  the  waking  must  be  a  kind  of 
death,  the  most  dreadful  of  all  deaths. 

Suddenly  a  kid  frisked  in  two  or  three  bounds  towards  the 
bench,  and  snuffed  at  Stephanie.  The  sound  awakened  her ; 
she  sprang  lightly  to  her  feet  without  scaring  away  the  capri- 
cious creature ;  but  as  soon  as  she  saw  Philip  she  fled,  fol- 
lowed by  her  four-footed  playmate,  to  a  thicket  of  elder  trees ; 
then  she  uttered  a  little  cry  like  the  note  of  a  startled 
wild-bird,  the  same  sound  that  the  colonel  had  heard  once 
before  near  the  grating,  when  the  Countess  appeared  to  M. 
d'Albon  for  the  first  time.  At  length  she  climbed  into  a 
laburnum  tree,  ensconced  herself  in  the  feathery  greenery, 
and  peered  at  the  strange  ma?i  with  as  much  interest  as  the 
most  inquisitive  nightingale  in  the  forest. 

"Farewell,  farewell,  farewell,"  she  said,  but  the  soul  sent 
no  trace  of  expression  of  feeling  through  the  words,  spoken 
with  the  careless  intonation  of  a  bird's  notes. 

"She   does   not  know   me!"    the   colonel   exclaimed   in 

despair.       "Stephanie!      Here    is  Philip,   your  Philip! 

Philip!"  and  the  poor  soldier  went  towards  the  laburnum 
tree  ;  but  when  he  stood  three  paces  away,  the  Countess  eyed 
him  almost  defiantly,  though  there  was  timidity  in  her  eyes ; 
then  at  a  bound  she  sprang  from  the  laburnum  to  an  acacia, 
and  thence  to  a  spruce-fir,  swinging  from  bough  to  bough  with 
marvelous  dexterity. 


348  FAREWELL, 

"  Do  not  follow  her,"  said  M.  Fanjat,  addressing  the 
colonel.  "  You  would  arouse  a  feeling  of  aversion  in  her 
which  might  become  insurmountable;  I  will  help  you  to  make 
her  acquaintance  and  to  tame  her.  Sit  down  on  the  bench. 
If  you  pay  no  heed  whatever  to  her,  poor  child,  it  will  not  be 
long  before. you  will  see  her  come  nearer  by  degrees  to  look 
at  you." 

"  That  she  should  not  know  me  !  that  she  should  fly  from 
me  !  "  the  colonel  repeated,  sitting  down  on  a  rustic  bench 
and  leaning  his  back  against  a  tree  that  overshadowed  it. 

He  bowed  his  head.  The  doctor  remained  silent.  Before 
very  long  the  Countess  stole  softly  down  from  her  high  refuge 
in  the  spruce-fir,  flitting  like  a  will-of-the-wisp ;  for,  as  the 
wind  stirred  through  the  boughs,  she  lent  herself  at  times  to 
the  swaying  movements  of  the  trees.  At  each  branch  she 
stopped  and  peered  at  the  stranger;  but  as  she  saw  him  sitting 
motionless,  she  at  length  jumped  down  to  the  grass,  stood  a 
while,  and  came  slowly  across  the  meadow.  When  she  took 
up  her  position  by  a  tree  about  ten  paces  from  the  bench,  M- 
Fanjat  spoke  to  the  colonel  in  a  low  voice. 

"  Feel  in   my  pocket   for  some  lumps  of  sugar,"  he  said, 
"and  let  her  see  them,  she  will  come;  I  willingly  give  up  to 
you  the  pleasure  of  giving  her  sweetmeats.     She  is  passion 
ately  fond  of  sugar,  and  by  that  means  you  will  accustom  her 
to  come  to  you  and  to  know  you." 

"  She  never  cared  for  sweet  things  when  she  was  a 
woman,"  Philip  answered  sadly. 

When  he  held  out  the  lump  of  sugar  between  his  thumb 
and  finger,  and  shook  it,  Stephanie  uttered  the  wild  note 
again,  and  sprang  quickly  towards  him  ;  then  she  stopped 
short,  there  was  a  conflict  between  longing  for  the  sweet 
morsel  and  instinctive  fear  of  him  ;  she  looked  at  the  sugar, 
turned  her  head  away,  and  looked  again  like  an  unfortunate 
dog  forbidden  to  touch  some  scrap  of  food,  while  his  master 
slowly  recites  the  greater  part  of  the  alphabet  until  he  reaches 


FAREWELL.  349 

the  letter  that  gives  permission.  At  length  animal  appetite 
conquered  fear ;  Stephanie  rushed  to  Philip,  held  out  a  dainty 
brown  hand  to  pounce  upon  the  coveted  morsel,  touched  her 
lover's  fingers,  snatched  the  piece  of  sugar,  and  vanished  with 
it  into  a  thicket.  This  painful  scene  was  too  much  for  the 
colonel ;  he  burst  into  tears,  and  took  refuge  in  the  drawing- 
room. 

"  Then  has  love  less  courage  than  affection?"  M.  Fanjat 
asked  him.  "I  have  hope,  Monsieur  le  Baron.  My  poor 
niece  was  once  in  a  far  more  pitiable  state  than  at  present." 

"Is  it  possible?"  cried  Philip. 

"She  would  not  wear  clothes,"  answered  the  doctor. 

The  colonel  shuddered,  and  his  face  grew  -pale.  To  the 
doctor's  mind  this  pallor  was  an  unhealthy  symptom  ;  he  went 
over  to  him  and  felt  his  pulse,  M.  de  Sucy  was  in  a  high 
fever ;  by  dint  of  persuasion,  he  succeeded  in  putting  the 
patient  in  bed,  and  gave  him  a  few  drops  of  laudanum  to  gain 
repose  and  sleep. 

The  -Baron  de  Sucy  spent  nearly  a  week,  in  a  constant 
struggle  with  a  deadly  anguish,  and  before  long  he  had  no 
tears  left  to  shed.  He  was  often  wellhigh  heart-broken ;  he 
could  not  grow  accustomed  to  the  sight  of  the  Countess'  mad- 
ness;  but  he  made  terms  for  himself,  as  it  were,  in  this  cruel 
position,  and  sought  alleviations  in  his  pain.  His  heroism 
was  boundless.  He  found  courage  to  overcome  Stephanie's 
wild  shyness  by  choosing  sweetmeats  for  her,  and  devoted  all 
his  thoughts  to  this,  bringing  these  dainties,  and  following  up 
the  little  victories  that  he  set  himself  to  gain  over  Stephanie's 
instincts  (the  last  gleam  of  intelligence  in  her),  until  he  suc- 
ceeded to  some  extent — she  grew  tamer  than  ever  before. 
Every  morning  the  colonel  went  into  the  park;  and  if,  after 
a  long  search  for  the  Countess,  he  could  not  discover  the  tree 
in  which  she  was  rocking  herself  gently,  nor  the  nook  where 
she  lay  crouching  at  play  with  some  bird,  nor  the  roof  where 
she  had  perched  herself,  he  would  whistle  the  well-known  air 


350  FAREWELL. 

Partant  pour  la  Syrt'e,  which  recalled  old  memories  of  their 
love,  and  Stephanie  would  run  towards  him  lightly  as  a  fawn. 
She  saw  the  colonel  so  often  that  she  was  no  longer  afraid  of 
him ;  before  very  long  she  would  sit  on  his  knee  with  her 
thin,  lithe  arms  about  him.  And  while  thus  they  sat  as  lovers 
love  to  do,  Philip  doled  out  sweetmeats  one  by  one  to  the 
eager  Countess.  When  they  were  all  finished,  the  fancy  often 
took  Stephanie  to  search  through  her  lover's  pockets  with  a 
monkey's  quick  instinctive  dexterity,  till  she  had  assured  her- 
self that  there  was  nothing  left,  and  then  she  gazed  at  Philip 
with  vacant  eyes;  there  was  no  thought,  no  gratitude  in  their 
clear  depths.  Then  she  would  play  with  him.  She  tried  to 
take  off  his  boots  to  see  his  foot ;  she  tore  his  gloves  to  shreds, 
and  put  on  his  hat ;  and  she  would  let  him  pass  his  hands 
through  her  hair,  and  take  her  in  his  arms,  and  submit  pas- 
sively to  his  passionate  kisses,  and  at  last,  if  he  shed  tears, 
she  would  gaze  silently  at  him. 

She  quite  understood  the  signal  when  he  whistled  Partant 
pour  la  Syrie,  but  he  could  never  succeed  in  inducing  her  to 
pronounce  her  own  name — Stephanie.  Philip  persevered  in 
his  heart-rending  task,  sustained  by  a  hope  that  never  left  him. 
If  on  some  bright  autumn  morning  he  saw  her  sitting  quietly 
on  a  bench  under  a  poplar  tree,  grown  brown  now  as  the 
season  wore,  the  unhappy  lover  would  lie  at  her  feet  and  gaze 
into  her  eyes  as  long  as  she  would  let  him  gaze,  hoping  that 
some  spark  of  intelligence  might  gleam  from  them.  At  times 
he  lent  himself  to  an  illusion ;  he  would  imagine  that  he  saw  the 
hard,  changeless  light  in  them  falter,  that  there  was  a  new  life 
and  softness  in  them,  and  he  would  cry,  "  Stephanie  !  oh, 
Stephanie  !  you  hear  me,  you  see  me,  do  you  not  ?  " 

But  for  her  the  sound  of  his  voice  was  like  any  other  sound, 
the  stirring  of  the  wind  in  the  trees,  or  the  lowing  of  the  cow 
on  which  she  scrambled  ;  and  the  colonel  wrung  his  hands  in 
a  despair  that  lost  none  of  its  bitterness  ;  nay,  time  and  these 
vain  efforts  only  added  to  his  anguish. 


FAREWELL.  35l 

One  evening,  under  the  quiet  sky,  in  the  midst  of  the 
silence  and  peace  of  the  forest  hermitage,  M.  Fanjat  saw  from 
a  distance  that  the  Baron  was  busy  loading  a  pistol,  and  knew 
that  the  lover  had  given  up  all  hope.  The  blood  surged  to 
the  old  doctor's  heart ;  and  if  he  overcame  the  dizzy  sensa- 
tion-that  seized  on  him,  it  was  because  he  would  rather  see  his 
niece  live  with  a  disordered  brain  than  lose  her  for  ever.  He 
hurried  to  the  place. 

"What  are  you  doing?"  he  cried. 

"That  is  for  me,"  the  colonel  answered,  pointing  to  a 
loaded  pistol  on  the  bench,  "  and  this  is  for  her  !  "  he  added, 
as  he  rammed  down  the  wad  into  the  pistol  that  he  held  in 
his  hands. 

The  Countess  lay  stretched  out  on  the  ground,  playing 
with  the  balls. 

"Then  you  do  not  know  that  last  night,  as  she  slept,  she 
murmured  'Philip?'"  said  the  doctor  quietly,  dissembling 
his  alarm. 

"She  called  my  name?"  cried  the  Baron,  letting  his 
weapon  fall.  Stephanie  picked  it  up,  but  he  snatched  it  out 
of  her  hands,  caught  the  other  pistol  from  the  bench  and 
fled. 

"  Poor  little  one  1  "  exclaimed  the  doctor,  rejoicing  that 
his  stratagem  had  succeeded  so  well.  He  held  her  tightly  to 
his  heart  as  he  went  on.  "  He  would  have  killed  you,  selfish 
that  he  is  !  He  wants  you  to  die  because  he  is  unhappy.  He 
cannot  learn  to  love  you  for  your  own  sake,  little  one  !  We 
forgive  him,  do  we  not  ?  He  is  senseless  ;  you  are  only  mad. 
Never  mind;  God  alone  shall  take  you  to  Himself.  We  look 
upon  you  as  unhappy  because  you  no  longer  share  our  miseries, 

fools  that  we  are  ! Why,  she  is  happy,"  he  said,  taking 

her  on  his  knee ;  "  nothing  troubles  her ;  she  lives  like  the 
birds,  like  the  deer " 

Stephanie  sprang  upon  a  young  blackbird  that  was  hopping 
about,  caught  it  with  a  little  shriek  of  glee,  twisted  its  neck, 


352  FARE  WELL. 

looked  at  the  dead  bird,  and  dropped  it  at  the  foot  of  a  tree 
without  giving  it  another  thought. 

The  next  morning  at  daybreak  the  colonel  went  out  into 
the  garden  to  look  for  Stephanie ;  hope  was  very  strong  in 
him.  He  did  not  see  her,  and  whistled  ;  and  when  she  came, 
he  took  her  arm,  and  for  the  first  time  they  walked  together 
along  an  alley  beneath  the  trees,  while  the  fresh  morning 
wind  shook  down  the  dead  leaves  about  them.  The  colonel 
sat  down,  and  Stephanie,  of  her  own  accord,  lit  upon  his 
knee.     Philip  trembled  with  gladness. 

"Love!"  he  cried,  covering  her  hands  with  passionate 
kisses,  "I  am  Philip " 

She  looked  curiously  at  him. 

"Come  close,"  he  added,  as  he  held  her  tightly.  "Do 
you  feel  the  beating  of  my  heart?  It  has  beat  for  you,  for 
you  only.  I  love  you  always.  Philip  is  not  dead.  He  is 
here.  You  are  sitting  on  his  knee.  You  are  my  Stephanie, 
I  am  your  Philip  !  " 

"  Farewell  !  "  she  said,  "  farewell  !  " 

The  colonel  shivered.  He  thought  that  some  vibration  of 
his  highly-wrought  feeling  had  surely  reached  his  beloved  ; 
that  the  heart-rending  cry  drawn  from  him  by  hope,  the  utmost 
effort  of  a  love  that  must  last  for  ever,  of  passion  in  its  ecstasy, 
striving  to  reach  the  soul  of  the  woman  he  loved,  must  awaken 
her. 

"  Oh,  Stephanie  !  we  shall  be  happy  yet  !  " 

A  cry  of  satisfaction  broke  from  her,  a  dim  light  of  intelli- 
gence gleamed  in  her  eyes. 

"  She  knows  me  !     Stephanie  ! " 

The  colonel  felt  his  heart  swell,  and  tears  gathered  under 
his  eyelids.  But  all  at  once  the  Countess  held  up  a  bit  of 
sugar  for  him  to  see;  she  had  discovered  it  by  searching  dili- 
gently for  it  while  he  spoke.  What  he  had  mistaken  for  a 
human  thought  was  a  degree  of  reason  required  for  a  monkey's 
mischievous  trick ! 


FAREWELL.  353 

Philip  fainted.  M.  Fanjat  found  the  Countess  sitting  on 
his  prostrate  body.  She  was  nibbling  her  bit  of  sugar,  giving 
expression  to  her  enjoyment  by  little  grimaces  and  gestures 
that  would  have  been  thought  clever  in  a  woman  in  full  pos- 
session of  her  senses  if  she  tried  to  mimic  her  paroquet  or  her 
cat. 

"  Oh,  my  friend  !  "  cried  Philip,  when  he  came  to  himself. 
"  This  is  like  death  every  moment  of  the  day  !  I  love  her 
too  much  !  I  could  bear  anything  if  only  through  her  mad- 
ness she  had  kept  some  little  trace  of  womanhood.  But,  day 
after  day,  to  see  her  like  a  wild  animal,  not  even  a  sense  of 

modesty  left,  to  see  her " 

"  So  you  must  have  a  theatrical  madness,  must  you?  "  said 
the  doctor  sharply,  "and  your  prejudices  are  stronger  than 
your  lover's  devotion?  What,  monsieur  !  I  resign  to  you  the 
Sad  pleasure  of  giving  my  niece  her  food  and  the  enjoyment 
of  her  playtime  ;  I  have  kept  for  myself  nothing  but  the  most 
burdensome   cares.     I  watch  over  her  while  you  are  asleep, 

I Go,  monsieur,  and  give  up  the  task.   Leave  this  dreary 

hermitage ;  I  can  live  with  my  little  darling ;  I  understand 
her  disease ;  I  study  her  movements  ;  I  know  her  secrets. 
Some  day  you  will  thank  me." 

The  colonel  left  the  Minorite  convent,  that  he  was  destined 
to  see  only  once  again.  The  doctor  was  alarmed  by  the  effect 
that  his  words  made  upon  his  guest ;  his  niece's  lover 
became  as  dear  to  him  as  his  niece.  If  either  of  them  de- 
served to  be  pitied,  that  one  was  certainly  Philip ;  did  he  not 
bear  alone  the  burden  of  an  appalling  sorrow? 

The  doctor  made  inquiries,  and  learned  that  the  hapless 
colonel  had  retired  to  a  country  house  of  his  near  Saint-Ger- 
main. A  dream  had  suggested  to  him  a  plan  for  restoring  the 
Countess  to  reason,  and  the  doctor  did  not  know  that  he  was 
spending  the  rest  of  the  autumn  in  carrying  out  a  vast  scheme. 
A  small  stream  ran  through  his  park,  and  in  the  winter-time 
flooded  a  low-lying  land,  something  like  the  plain  on  the 
23 


354  FARE  WELL. 

eastern  side  of  the  Beresina.  The  village  of  Satout,  on  the 
slope  of  a  ridge  above  it,  bounded  the  horizon  of  a  picture  of 
desolation,  something  as  Studzianka  lay  on  the  heights  that 
shut  in  the  swamp  of  the  Beresina.  The  colonel  set  laborers 
to  work  to  make  a  channel  to  resemble  the  greedy  river  that 
had  swallowed  up  the  treasures  of  France  and  Napoleon's 
army.  By  the  help  of  his  memories,  Philip  reconstructed  on 
his  own  lands  the  bank  where  General  Eble  had  built  his 
bridges.  He  drove  in  piles,  and  then  set  fire  to  them,  so  as 
to  reproduce  the  charred  and  blackened  balks  of  timber  that 
on  either  side  of  the  river  told  the  stragglers  that  their  retreat 
to  France  had  been  cut  off.  He  had  materials  collected  like 
the  fragments  out  of  which  his  comrades  in  misfortune  had 
made  the  raft ;  his  park  was  laid  waste  to  complete  the  illu- 
sion on  which  his  last  hopes  were  founded.  He  ordered 
ragged  uniforms  and  clothing  for  several  hundred  peasants. 
Huts  and  bivouacs  and  batteries  were  raised  and  burned  down. 
In  short,  he  omitted  no  device  that  could  reproduce  that 
most  hideous  of  all  scenes.  He  succeeded.  When,  in  the 
earliest  days  of  December,  snow  covered  the  earth  with  a 
thick  white  mantle,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  saw  the  Beresina 
itself.  The  mimic  Russia  was  so  startlingly  real,  that  several 
of  his  old  comrades  recognized  the  scene  of  their  past  suffer- 
ings. M.  de  Sucy  kept  the  secret  of  the  drama  to  be  enacted 
with  this  tragical  background,  but  it  was  looked  upon  as  a 
mad  freak  on  his  part,  in  several  of  the  leading  circles  of 
society  in  Paris. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  month  of  January,  1820.  the  colonel 
drove  over  to  the  Forest  of  l'lsle-Adam  in  a  carriage  like  the 
one  in  which  M.  and  Mrae.  de  Vandieres  had  driven  from 
Moscow  to  Studzianka.  The  horses  closely  resembled  that 
other  pair  that  he  had  risked  his  life  to  bring  from  the  Russian 
lines.  He  himself  wore  the  grotesque  and  soiled  clothes, 
accoutrements,  and  cap  that  he  had  worn  on  the  29th  of 
November,  181 2.     He  had  even  allowed  his  hair  and  beard 


FAREWELL.  355 

to  grow,  and  neglected  his  appearance,  that  no  detail  might 
be  lacking  to  recall  the  scene  in  all  its  horror. 

"I  guessed  what  you  meant  to  do,"  cried  M.  Fanjat,  when 
he  saw  the  colonel  dismount.  "If  you  mean  your  plan  to 
succeed,  do  not  let  her  see  you  in  that  carriage.  This  evening 
I  will  give  my  niece  a  little  laudanum,  and  while  she  sleeps 
we  will  dress  her  in  such  clothes  as  she  wore  at  Studzianka, 
and  put  her  in  your  traveling  carriage.  I  will  follow  you  in  a 
berline." 

Soon  after  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  young  Countess 
was  lifted  into  the  carriage,  laid  on  the  cushions,  and  wrapped 
in  a  coarse  blanket.  A  few  peasants  held  torches  while  this 
strange  elopement  was  arranged. 

A  sudden  cry  rang  through  the  silence  of  night,  and  Philip 
and  the  doctor,  turning,  saw  Genevieve.  She  had  come  out 
half-dressed  from  the  low  room  where  she  slept. 

"Farewell,  farewell;  it  is  all  over,  farewell  !  "  she  called, 
crying  bitterly. 

"Why,  Genevieve,  what  is  it  ?  "  asked  M.  Fanjat. 

Genevieve  shook  her  head  despairingly,  raised  her  arm  to 
heaven,  looked  at  the  carriage,  uttered  a  long  snarling  sound, 
and,  with  evident  signs  of  profound  terror,  slunk  in  again. 

"  'Tis  a  good  omen,"  cried  the  colonel.  "The  girl  is 
sorry  to  lose  her  companion.  Very  likely  she  sees  that  Ste- 
phanie is  about  to  recover  her  reason." 

"God  grant  it  maybe  so!"  answered  M.  Fanjat,  who 
seemed  to  be  affected  by  this  incident.  Since  insanity  had 
interested  him,  he  had  known  several  cases  in  which  a  spirit 
of  prophecy  and  the  gift  of  second-sight  had  been  accorded 
to  a  disordered  brain — two  faculties  which  many  travelers  tell 
us  are  also  found  among  savage  tribes. 

So  it  happened  that,  as  the  colonel  had  foreseen  and  ar- 
ranged, Stephanie  traveled  across  the  mimic  Beresina  about 
nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  was  awakened  by  an  explo- 
sion of  rockets  about  a  hundred  paces  from  the  scene  of  action. 


356  FAREWELL, 

It  was  a  signal.  Hundreds  of  peasants  raised  a  terrible  clamor, 
like  the  despairing  shouts  that  startled  the  Russians  when 
twenty  thousand  stragglers  learned  that  by  their  own  fault 
they  were  delivered  over  to  death  or  to  slavery. 

When  the  Countess  heard  the  report  and  the  cries  that 
followed  she  sprang  out  of  the  carriage  and  rushed  in  frenzied 
anguish  over  the  snow-covered  plain  ;  she  saw  the  burned 
bivouacs  and  the  fatal  raft  about  to  be  launched  on  a  frozen 
Beresina.  She  saw  Major  Philip  brandishing  his  sabre  among 
the  crowd.  The  cry  that  broke  from  Mine,  de  Vandieres 
made  the  blood  run  cold  in  the  veins  of  all  who  heard  it. 
She  stood  face  to  face  with  the  colonel,  who  watched  her  with 
a  beating  heart.  At  first  she  stared  blankly  at  the  strange 
scene  about  her,  then  she  reflected.  For  an  instant,  brief  as 
a  lightning  flash,  there  was  the  same  quick  gaze  and  total  lack 
of  comprehension  that  we  see  in  the  bright  eyes  of  a  bird  ; 
then  she  passed  her  hand  across  her  forehead  with  the  intelli- 
gent expression  of  a  thinking  being;  she  looked  round  on  the 
memories  that  had  taken  substantial  form,  into  the  past  life 
that  had  been  transported  into  her  present ;  she  turned  her 
face  to  Philip — and  saw  him  !  An  awed  silence  fell  upon  the 
crowd.  The  colonel  breathed  hard,  but  dared  not  speak  ; 
tears  filled  the  doctor's  eyes.  A  faint  color  overspread  Ste- 
phanie's beautiful  face,  deepening  slowly,  till  at  last  she 
glowed  like  a  girl  radiant  with  youth.  Still  the  bright  flush 
grew.  Life  and  joy,  kindled  within  her  as  the  blaze  of  intel- 
ligence, swept  through  her  like  leaping  flames.  A  convulsive 
tremor  ran  from  her  feet  to  her  heart.  But  all  these  tokens, 
which  flashed  on  the  sight  in  a  moment,  gathered  and  gained 
consistence,  as  it  were,  when  Stephanie's  eyes  gleamed  with 
heavenly  radiance,  the  light  of  a  soul  within.  She  lived,  she 
thought  !  She  shuddered — was  it  with  fear?  God  Himself 
unloosed  a  second  time  the  tongue  that  had  been  bound  by 
death,  and  set  His  fire  anew  in  the  extinguished  soul.     The 


FAREWELL.  357 

electric  torrent  of  the  human  will  vivified  the  body  whence  it 
had  so  long  been  absent. 

"  Stephanie  !  "  the  colonel  cried. 

"  Oh  !  it  is  Philip  !  "  said  the  poor  Countess. 

She  fled  to  the  trembling  arms  held  out  towards  her,  and 
the  embrace  of  the  two  lovers  frightened  those  who  beheld  it. 
Stephanie  burst  into  tears. 

Suddenly  the  tears  ceased  to  flow ;  she  lay  in  his  arms  a 
dead  weight,  as  if  stricken  by  a  thunderbolt,  and  said  faintly— 

"  Farewell,  Philip  ! I  love  you farewell  !  " 

"  She  is  dead  !  "  cried  the  colonel,  unclasping  his  arms. 

The  old  doctor  received  the  lifeless  body  of  his  niece  in  his 
arms  as  a  young  man  might  have  done  ;  he  carried  her  to  a 
stack  of  wood  and  set  her  down.  He  looked  at  her  face,  and 
laid  a  feeble  hand,  tremulous  with  agitation,  upon  her  heart 
— it  beat  no  longer. 

"  Can  it  really  be  so  ?  "  he  said,  looking  from  the  colonel, 
who  stood  there  motionless,  to  Stephanie's  face.  Death  had 
invested  it  with  a  radiant  beauty,  a  transient  aureole,  the 
pledge,  it  may  be,  of  a  glorious  life  to  come. 

"Yes,  she  is  dead." 

"  Oh,  but  that  smile  !  "  cried  Philip  ;  "  only  see  that  smile. 
Is  it  possible?  " 

"  She  has  grown  cold  already,"  answered  M.  Fanjat. 

M.  de  Sucy  made  a  few  strides  to  tear  himself  from  the 
sight ;  then  he  stopped,  and  whistled  the  air  that  the  mad 
Stephanie  had  understood  ;  and  when  he  saw  that  she  did 
not  rise  and  hasten  to  him,  he  walked  away,  staggering  like  a 
drunken  man,  still  whistling,  but  he  did  not  turn  again. 

In  society  General  de  Sucy  is  looked  upon  as  very  agree- 
able, and,  above  all  things,  as  very  lively  and  amusing.  Not 
very  long  ago  a  lady  complimented  him  upon  his  good  humor 
and  equable  temper. 


358  FAREWELL. 

"  Ah  !  madame,"  he  answered,  "  I  pay  very  dearly  for  my 
merriment  in  the  evening  if  I  am  alone." 

"Then,  you  are  never  alone,  I  suppose." 

"  No,"  he  answered,  smiling. 

If  a  keen  observer  of  human  nature  could  have  seen  the 
look  that  Sucy's  face  wore  at  that  moment,  he  would,  without 
doubt,  have  shuddered. 

"Why  do  you  not  marry?  "  the  lady  asked  (she  had  sev- 
eral daughters  of  her  own  at  a  boarding-school).  "You  are 
wealthy ;  you  belong  to  an  old  and  noble  house  ;  you  are 
clever ;  you  have  a  future  before  you ;  everything  smiles  upon 
you." 

"Yes,"  he  answered  ;  "  one  smile  is  killing  me " 

On  the  morrow  the  lady  heard  with  amazement  that  M.  de 
Sucy  had  shot  himself  through  the  head  that  night. 

The  fashionable  world  discussed  the  extraordinary  news  in 
divers  ways,  and  each  had  a  theory  to  account  for  it ;  play, 
love,  ambition,  irregularities  in  private  life,  according  to  the 
taste  of  the  speaker,  explained  the  last  act  of  the  tragedy  be- 
gan in  1812  Two  men  alone,  a  magistrate  and  an  old  doctor, 
knew  that  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Sucy  was  one  of  those  souls 
unhappy  in  the  strength  God  gives  them  to  enable  them  to 
triumph  daily  in  a  ghastly  struggle  with  a  mysterious  horror. 
If  for  a  moment  God  withdraws  His  sustaining  hand,  they 
succumb. 

Paris,  March,  1830. 


A  SEASIDE  TRAGEDY.* 

(Un  Drame  au  bord  de  la  mer.) 

To    Madame    la   Princesse     Caroline     Galitzin    de 
Genthod,  nee    Comtesse    Walewska 
the  Author  is  respectfully  dedicated. 


Genthod,  nee    Comtesse    Walewska,   this  souvenir  of 


The  young  for  the  most  part  delight  to  measure  the  future 
with  a  pair  of  compasses  of  their  own  ;  when  the  strength  of 
the  will  equals  the  boldness  of  the  angle  that  they  thus  pro- 
ject, the  whole  world  is  theirs. 

This  phenomenon  of  mental  existence  takes  place,  however, 
only  at  a  certain  age,  and  that  age,  without  exception,  lies  in 
the  years  between  twenty-two  and  eight-and-twenty.  It  is  an 
age  of  first  conceptions,  because  it  is  an  age  of  vast  longings, 
an  age  which  is  doubtful  of  nothing  ;  doubt  at  that  time  is  a 
confession  of  weakness  ;  it  passes  as  swiftly  as  the  sowing 
time,  and  is  followed  by  the  age  of  execution.  There  are  in 
some  manner  two  periods  of  youth  in  every  life — the 
youth  of  confident  hopes,  and  the  youth  of  action  ;  some- 
times in  those  whom  nature  has  favored,  the  two  ages  coincide, 
and  then  we  have  a  Caesar,  a  Newton,  or  a  Bonaparte — the 
greatest  among  great  men. 

I  was  measuring  the  space  of  time  that  a  single  thought 
needs  for  its  development,  and  (compass  in  hand)  stood  on  a 
crag  a  hundred  fathoms  above  the  sea,  surveying  my  future, 
and  filling  it  with  great  works,  like  an  engineer  who  should 
survey  an  empty  land,  and  cover  it  with  fortresses  and  palaces. 
The  sea  was  calm,  the  waves  toyed  with  the  reefs  of  rock.  I 
had  just  dressed  after  a  swim,  and  was  waiting  for  Pauline,  my 
guardian  angel,  who  was  bathing  in  a  granite  basin  floored 
*  A  letter  written  by  Louis  Lambert. 

(359) 


360  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

with    fine    sand,    the    daintiest     bathing-place    of    nature's 
fashioning  for  the  sea-fairies. 

We  were  at  the  utmost  extremity  of  Croisic-point,  a  tiny 
peninsula  in  Brittany ;  we  were  far  from  the  haven  itself,  and 
in  a  part  of  the  coast  so  inaccessible  that  the  inland  revenue 
department  ignored  it,  and  a  coastguard  scarcely  ever  passed 
that  way.  Ah  !  to  dip  in  the  winds  of  space,  after  a  plunge  in 
the  sea  !  Who  would  not  have  launched  forth  into  the  future  ? 
Why  did  I  think?  Why  does  a  trouble  invade  us?  Who 
knows  ?  Ideas  drift  across  heart  and  brain  by  no  will  of 
yours.  No  courtesan  is  more  capricious,  more  imperious, 
than  an  artist's  inspiration ;  you  must  seize  her  like  fortune, 
and  grasp  her  by  the  hair — when  she  comes.  Borne  aloft  by 
my  thought,  like  Astolpho  upon  his  hippogrirT,  I  rode  across 
my  world,  and  arranged  it  all  to  my  liking.  Then  when  I 
was  fain  to  find  some  augury  in  the  things  about  me  for  these 
daring  castles  that  a  wild  imagination  bade  me  build,  I  heard 
a  sweet  cry  above  the  murmur  of  the  restless  sea-fringe  that 
marks  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide  upon  the  shore,  the  sound 
of  a  woman's  voice  calling  to  me  through  the  loneliness  and 
silence,  the  glad  cry  of  a  woman  fresh  from  the  sea.  It  was 
as  if  a  soul  leaped  forth  in  that  cry,  and  it  seemed  to  me  as  if 
I  had  seen  the  footprints  of  an  angel  on  the  bare  rocks,  an 
angel  with  outspread  wings,  who  cried,  "  You  will  succeed  !  " 
I  came  down,  radiant  and  light  of  foot,  by  bounds,  like  a 
pebble  flung  down  some  steep  slope.  "  What  is  it?"  she 
asked  as  soon  as  she  saw  me,  and  I  did  not  answer ;  my  eyes 
were  full  of  tears. 

Yesterday  Pauline  had  felt  my  sorrow,  as  to-day  she  felt  my 
joy,  with  the  magical  responsiveness  of  a  harp  that  is  sensitive 
to  every  change  in  the  atmosphere.  Life  has  exquisite  mo- 
ments. We  went  in  silence  along  the  beach.  The  sky  was 
cloudless;  there  was  not  a  ripple  on  the  sea;  others  might 
have  seen  nothing  there  but  two  vast  blue  steppes  above  and 
below ;  but  as  for  us,  who  had  no  need  of  words  to  understand 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  361 

each  other,  who  could  conjure  up  illusions  to  feast  the  eyes 
of  youth  and  fill  the  space  between  the  zones  of  sea  and  sky — 
those  swaddling-bands  of  the  Infinite — we  pressed  each  other's 
hands  at  the  slightest  change  that  passed  over  the  fields  of 
water  or  the  fields  of  air,  for  in  those  fleeting  signs  we  read 
the  interpretation  of  our  double  thought.  Who  has  not 
known,  in  the  midst  of  pleasure,  the  moment  of  infinite  joy 
when  the  soul  slips  its  fetters  of  flesh,  as  it  were,  and  returns 
to  the  world  whence  it  came?  And  pleasure  is  not  our  only 
guide  to  those  regions ;  are  there  not  hours  when  feeling  and 
thought  intertwine  with  thought  and  feeling,  and  fare  forth 
together  as  two  children  who  take  each  other  by  the  hand  and 
run,  without  knowing  why?     We  went  thus. 

The  roofs  of  the  town  had  come  to  be  a  faint  gray  line  on 
the  horizon  by  the  time  that  we  came  upon  a  poor  fisherman 
on  his  way  back  to  Croisic.  He  was  barefooted  ;  his  trousers, 
of  linen  cloth,  were  botched,  and  tattered,  and  fringed  with 
rags ;  he  wore  a  shirt  of  sailcloth,  and  a  mere  rag  of  a  jacket. 
This  wretchedness  jarred  upon  us,  as  if  it  had  been  a  discord- 
ant note  in  the  midst  of  our  harmony.  We  both  looked  at 
each  other,  regretting  that  we  had  not  Abu]  Kasim's  treasury 
to  draw  upon  at  that  moment.  The  fisherman  was  swinging 
a  splendid  lobster  and  an  adder-pike  on  a  string  in  his  right 
hand,  while  in  the  left  he  carried  his  fishing  tackle.  We 
called  to  him,  with  a  view  to  buying  his  fish.  The  same  idea 
that  occurred  to  us  both  found  expression  in  a  smile,  to  which 
I  replied  by  a  light  pressure  of  the  arm  that  lay  in  mine  as  I 
drew  it  closer  to  my  heart. 

It  was  one  of  those  nothings  that  memory  afterwards  weaves 
into  poems,  when  by  the  fireside  our  thoughts  turn  to  the  hour 
when  that  nothing  so  moved  us,  and  the  place  rises  before  us 
seen  through  a  mirage  which  as  yet  has  not  been  investigated, 
a  magical  illusion  that  often  invests  material  things  about  us 
during  those  moments  when  life  flows  swiftly  and  our  hearts 
are  full.    The  most  beautiful  places  are  only  what  we  make  them, 


362  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

What  man  is  there,  with  something  of  a  poet  in  him, 
who  does  not  find  that  some  fragment  of  rock  holds  a  larger 
place  in  his  memories  than  famous  views  in  many  lands  which 
he  has  made  costly  journeyings  to  see  ?  Beside  that  rock 
what  thoughts  surged  through  him!  There  he  lived  through 
a  whole  life  ;  there  fears  were  dissipated,  and  gleams  of  hope 
shone  into  the  depths  of  his  soul.  At  that  moment  the  sun, 
as  if  sympathizing  with  those  thoughts  of  love  or  of  the 
future,  cast  a  glow  of  light  and  warmth  over  the  tawny  sides 
of  the  rock;  his  eyes  were  drawn  to  a  mountain  flower  here 
and  there  on  its  sides,  and  the  crannies  and  rifts  grew  larger 
in  the  silence  and  peace ;  the  mass,  so  dark  in  reality,  took 
the  hue  of  his  dreams ;  and  then  how  beautiful  it  was  with  its 
scanty  plant  life,  its  pungent-scented  camomile  flowers,  its 
velvet  fronds  of  maiden-hair  fern  !  How  splendidly  decked 
for  a  prolonged  festival  of  human  powers  exultant  in  their 
strength  !  Once  already  the  Lake  of  Bienne,  seen  from  the 
island  of  Saint-Pierre,  had  so  spoken  to  me ;  perhaps  the  rock 
at  Croisic  will  be  the  last  of  these  joys.  But,  then,  what  will 
become  of  Pauline? 

"  You  have  had  a  fine  catch  this  morning,  good  man,"  I 
said  to  the  fisherman. 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  answered,  coming  to  a  stand;  and  we  saw 
his  face,  swarthy  with  exposure  to  the  sun's  rays  that  beat 
down  on  the  surface  of  the  sea.  The  expression  of  his  face 
told  of  the  patient  resignation  and  the  simple  manners  of 
fisher-folk.  Th'ere  was  no  roughness  in  the  man's  voice;  he 
had  a  kindly  mouth,  and  there  Was  an  indefinable  something 
about  him — ambitionless,  starved,  and  stunted.  We  should 
have  been  disappointed  if  he  had  looked  otherwise. 

"  Where  will  you  sell  the  fish?  " 

"In  the  town." 

"  What  will  they  give  you  for  the  lobster?  " 

M  Fifteen  sous." 

"  And  for  the  adder-pike  ?  " 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  363 

"Twenty  sous." 

"  Why  does  it  cost  so  much  more  than  the  lobster?  " 

"  Oh  !  the  adder-pike  "  (he  called  it  an  eiter-\>\ke)  "  is 
much  more  delicate,  sir  !  And  then  they  are  as  spiteful  as 
monkeys,  and  very  hard  to  catch." 

"Will  you  let  us  have  them  both  for  five  francs?"  asked 
Pauline.     The  man  stood  stock-still  with  astonishment. 

"  You  shall  not  have  them  !  "  I  cried,  laughing.  "  I  bid  ten 
francs  for  them.  '  Emotions  should  be  paid  for  at  a  proper 
rate." 

"  Quite  right,"  returned  she  ;  "  but  I  mean  to  have  them. 
I  bid  ten  francs  two  sous  for  them." 

"Ten  sous." 

"Twelve  francs." 

"  Fifteen  francs." 

"  Fifteen  francs  fifty  centimes,"  said  she. 

"A  hundred  francs." 

"  A  hundred  and  fifty." 

I  bowed.  We  were  not  rich  enough  just  then  to  bid  against 
each  other  any  longer.  Our  poor  fisherman  was  mystified, 
not  knowing  whether  to  be  annoyed  or  to  give  himself  up  to 
joy;  but  we  helped  him  out  of  his  difficulty  by  telling  him 
where  we  lodged,  and  bidding  him  take  the  lobster  and  the 
adder-pike  to  our  landlady. 

"Is  that  how  you  make  a  living?"  I  asked,  wondering 
how  he  came  to  be  so  poor. 

"  It  is  about  all  I  can  do,  and  it  is  a  very  hard  life,"  he  said. 
"  Shore  fishing  is  a  chancy  trade  when  you  have  neither  boat 
nor  nets  and  must  do  it  with  hooks  and  tackle.  You  have 
to  wait  for  the  tide,  you  see,  for  the  fish  or  the  shell-fish,  while 
those  who  do  things  on  a  large  scale  put  out  to  sea.  It  is  so 
hard  to  make  a  living  at  it  that  I  am  the  only  shore-fisher  in 
these  parts.  For  whole  days  together  I  get  nothing  at  all. 
For  if  you  are  to  catch  anything,  an  adder-pike  must  fall 
asleep  and  get  left  by  the  tide,  like  this  one  here,  or  a  lobster 


364  A    SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

must  be  fool  enough  to  stick  to  the  rocks.  Sometimes  some 
bass  come  up  with  a  high  tide,  and  then  I  get  hold  of 
them." 

"And,  after  all,  taking  one  thing  with  another,  what  do 
you  make  each  day  ?  " 

"  Eleven  or  twelve  sous.  I  could  get  on  if  I  had  no  one 
but  myself,  but  I  have  my  father  to  keep,  and  the  old  man 
can't  help  me;  he  is  blind." 

The  words  came  from  him  quite  simply ;  Pauline  and  I 
looked  at  each  other  in  silence. 

"  Have  you  a  wife  or  a  sweetheart  ?  "' 

He  glanced  at  us  with  one  of  the  most  piteous  expressions 
that  I  have  ever  seen  on  a  human  face,  and  answered,  "  If  I 
had  a  wife,  I  should  have  to  turn  my  old  father  adrift ;  I  could 
not  keep  him  and  keep  a  wife  and  children  too." 

"But,  my  good  fellow,  why  don't  you  try  to  earn  some- 
thing more  by  carrying  salt  in  the  haven  or  by  working  in 
the  salt  pits  ?  " 

"Ah!  sir,  I  could  not  stand  the  work  for  three  months. 
I  am  not  strong  enough,  and  if  anything  happened  to  me 
my  father  would  have  to  beg.  The  only  kind  of  work 
for  me  is  something  that  wants  a  little  skill  and  a  lot  of 
patience." 

"  But  how  can  two  people  live  on  twelve  sous  a  day?  " 

"  Oh,  sir,  we  live  on  buckwheat  bannocks  and  the  barnacles 
I  break  off  the  rocks." 

"  How  old  are  you?  " 

"Thirty-seven." 

"  Have  you  always  stopped  here?" 

"  I  once  went  to  Guerande  to  be  drawn  for  the  army,  and 
once  to  Savenay  to  be  examined  by  some  gentlemen  who 
measured  me.  If  I  had  been  an  inch  taller,  they  would  have 
made  me  into  a  soldier.  The  first  long  march  would  have  put 
an  end  to  me,  and  my  poor  father  would  have  been  begging 
his  bread  this  day." 


A  SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  365 

I  have  imagined  many  tragedies,  and  Pauline,  who  passes 
her  life  by  the  side  of  a  man  who  suffers  as  I  do,  is  used  to 
strong  emotion,  yet  neither  of  us  had  ever  heard  words  so 
touching  as  these  of  the  fisherman.  We  walked  on  for  sev- 
eral steps  in  silence,  fathoming  the  dumb  depths  of  this 
stranger's  life,  admiring  the  nobleness  of  a  sacrifice  made 
unconsciously  ;  the  strength  of  his  weakness  made  us  marvel, 
his  reckless  generosity  humbled  us.  A  vision  of  the  life  of 
this  poor  creature  rose  before  me,  a  life  of  pure  instinct,  a 
being  chained  to  his  rock  like  a  convict  fettered  to  a  cannon- 
ball,  seeking  for  shell-fish  to  gain  a  livelihood,  and  upheld  in 
that  long  patience  of  twenty  years  by  a  single  feeling ! 
How  many  hopes  disappointed  by  a  squall  or  a  change  in 
the  weather !  And  while  he  was  hanging  over  the  edge  of 
a  block  of  granite  with  arms  outstretched  like  a  Hindoo 
fakir,  his  old  father,  crouching  on  his  stool  in  the  dark, 
silent  hut,  was  waiting  for  the  coarsest  of  the  shell-fish,  and 
bread,  if  the  sea  should  please. 

"  Do  you  drink  wine  now  and  then?  "  I  asked. 

"  Three  or  four  times  a  year." 

"  Very  well,  you  shall  drink  wine  to-day,  you  and  your 
father  ;  and  we  will  send  you  a  white  loaf." 

"  You  are  very  kind,  sir." 

"  We  will  give  you  the  wherewithal  for  dinner,  if  you  care 
to  show  us  the  way  along  the  shore  to  Batz,  where  we  shall 
see  the  tower  that  gives  you  a  view  of  the  harbor  and  the 
shore  between  Batz  and  Croisic." 

"  With  pleasure,"  said  he.  "Go  straight  on,  follow  the 
road  you  are  in  ;  I  will  overtake  you  again  when  I  have  gotten 
rid  of  my  tackle." 

We  both  made  the  same  sign  of  assent,  and  he  rushed  off 
towards  the  town  in  great  spirits.  We  were  still  as  we  had 
been  before,  but  the  meeting  had  dimmed  our  joyousness. 

"Poor  man  !"  Pauline  exclaimed,  in  the  tone  that  takes 
from  a  woman's  compassion  any  trace  of  the  something  that 


366  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

wounds  us  in  pity,  "  it  makes  one  ashamed  to  feel  happy 
when  he  is  so  miserable,  doesn't  it  ?  " 

"There  is  nothing  more  bitter  than  helpless  wishing,"  I 
answered.  "  The  two  poor  creatures,  this  father  and  son, 
could  no  more  understand  how  keen  our  sympathy  has  been 
than  the  world  could  understand  the  beauty  in  that  life  of 
theirs,  for  they  are  laying  up  treasures  in  heaven." 

"  Poor  country  !  "  she  said,  pointing  out  to  me  the  heaps 
of  cow-dung  spread  along  a  field  under  a  wall  of  unhewn 
stones.  "1  asked  why  they  did  that,  and  a  peasant  woman 
who  was  spreading  it  said  that  she  was  '  making  firewood.' 
Just  imagine,  dear,  that  when  the  cow-dung  is  dry,  the  poor 
people  heap  it  up  and  light  fires  with  it.  During  the  winter 
.they  sell  it,  like  blocks  of  bark  fuel.  And,  finally,  how  much 
do  you  think  the  best-paid  sempstresses  earn  ?  Five  sous  a 
day  and  their  board,"  she  went  on  after  a  pause. 

"Look,"  I  said,  "the  sea-winds  blight  or  uproot  every- 
thing ;  there  are  no  trees.  Those  who  can  afford  it  burn  the 
driftwood  and  broken-up  boats ;  it  costs  too  dear,  I  expect, 
to  bring  firewood  from  other  parts  of  Brittany  where  there  is5 
so  much  timber.  It  is  a  country  without  beauty,  save  for 
great  souls,  and  those  who  have  no  hearts  could  not  live  here 
— it  is  a  land  for  poets  and  barnacles,  and  nothing  between. 
It  was  only  when  the  salt  warehouses  were  built  on  the  cliff 
that  people  came  to  live  here.  There  is  nothing  here  but 
the  smd,  the  sea  beyond  it,  and  above  us — space." 

We  had  already  passed  the  town,  and  were  crossing  the 
waste  between  Croisic  and  the  market-town  of  Batz.  Imagine, 
dear  uncle,  two  leagues  of  waste  covered  with  gleaming  sand. 
Here  and  there  a  few  rocks  raised  their  heads  ;  you  might 
almost  think  that  extinct  monsters  were  crouching  among  the 
dunes.  The  waves  broke  over  the  low  ridges  along  the  margin 
of  the  sea,  till  they  looked  like  large  white  roses  floating  on 
the  surface  of  the  water  and  drifted  up  upon  the  beach.  I 
looked  across  this  savanna  that  lay  between  the  ocean  on  the 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  367 

right  and  the  great  lagoon  on  the  left,  made  by  the  encroach- 
ing sea  between  Croisic  and  the  sandy  heights  of  Guerande, 
with  the  barren  salt  marshes  at  their  feet ;  then  I  looked  at 
Pauline,  and  asked  if  she  felt  able  to  walk  across  the  sands  in 
the  burning  sun. 

"I  have  laced  boots  on;  let  us  go  over  there,"  she  said, 
looking  towards  the  Tower  of  Batz,  which  caught  the  eye  by 
its  great  mass,  erected  there  like  a  pyramid  in  the  desert,  a 
slender  spindle-shaped  pyramid  however,  a  pyramid  so  pic- 
turesquely ornate  that  one  could  imagine  it  to  be  an  outlying 
sentinel  ruin  of  some  great  Eastern  town  laid  desolate. 

We  went  a  few  paces  further  to  reach  a  fragment  of  rock  to 
sit  in  the  shade  that  it  still  cast,  but  it  was  eleven  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  and  the  shadows  which  crept  closer  and  closer 
to  our  feet  swiftly  disappeared  altogether. 

"  How  beautiful  the  silence  is,"  she  said;  " and  how  the  mur- 
mur of  the  sea  beating  steadily  against  the  beach  deepens  it !  " 

"  If  you  surrender  your  mind  to  the  three  immensities 
around  us — the  air,  the  sea,  and  the  sands" — I  answered, 
"and  heed  nothing  but  the  monotonous  sound  of  the  ebb  and 
flow,  you  would  find  its  speech  intolerable,  for  you  would 
think  that  it  bore  the  burden  of  a  thought  that  would  over- 
whelm you.  Yesterday,  at  sunset,  I  felt  that  sensation ;  it 
crushed  me." 

"Oh  yes,  let  us  talk,"  she  said,  after  a  long  pause.  "No 
speaker  is  more  terrible.  I  imagine  that  I  am  discovering  the 
causes  of  the  harmonies  about  us,"  she  went  on.  "  This 
landscape  that  has  but  three  contrasting  colors — the  gleam- 
ing yellow  of  the  sand,  the  blue  heavens,  and  the  changeless 
green  of  the  sea — is  great  without  anything  savage  in  its 
grandeur,  vast  but  not  desolate,  monotonous  but  not  dreary; 
it  is  made  up  of  three  elements;   it  has  variety." 

"Women  alone  can  render  their  impressions  like  that,"  I 
said;  "you  would  be  the  despair  of  a  poet,  dear  soul,  that  I 
have  read  so  well." 


368  A    SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

"  These  three  expressions  of  the  Infinite  glow  like  a  burning 
flame  in  the  noonday  heat,"  Pauline  said,  laughing.  "Here 
I  can  imagine  the  poetry  and  passions  of  the  East." 

"And  I,  a  vision  of  despair." 

"Yes,"  she  said  ;   "  the  dune  is  a  sublime  cloister." 

We  heard  our  guide  hurrying  after  us ;  he  wore  his  holiday 
clothes.  We  asked  him  a  few  insignificant  questions;  he 
thought  he  saw  that  our  mood  had  changed,  and,  with  the  self- 
repression  that  misfortune  teaches,  he  was  silent ;  and  we  also 
— though  from  time  to  time  each  pressed  the  hand  of  the  other  to 
communicate  thoughts  and  impressions — -walked  for  half  an  hour 
in  silence,  either  because  the  shimmering  heat  above  the  sands 
lay  heavily  upon  us,  or  because  the  difficulty  of  walking  ab- 
sorbed our  attention.  We  walked  hand  in  hand  like  two 
children ;  we  should  not  have  gone  a  dozen  paces  if  we  had 
walked  arm  in  arm. 

The  way  that  led  to  Batz  was  little  more  than  a  track;  the 
first  high  wind  effaced  the  ruts  or  the  dints  left  by  horses' 
hoofs ;  but  the  experienced  eyes  of  our  guide  discerned  traces 
of  cattle  and  sheep  dung  on  this  way,  which  sometimes  wound 
towards  the  sea  and  sometimes  towards  the  land,  to  avoid  the 
cliffs  on  the  one  hand  and  the  rocks  on  the  other.  It  was 
noon,  and  we  were  only  half-way. 

"  We  will  rest  there,"  I  said,  pointing  to  a  headland  where 
the  rocks  rose  high  enough  to  make  it  probable  that  we  might 
find  a  cave  among  them.  The  fisherman,  following  the  direc- 
tion of  my  finger,  jerked  his  head. 

"  There  is  some  one  there  !  Any  one  coming  from  market 
at  Batz  to  Croisic,  or  from  Croisic  to  Batz,  always  goes  round 
some  way  so  as  not  to  pass  near  the  place." 

He  spoke  in  a  low  voice  that  suggested  a  mystery. 

"Then  is  there  a  robber  there,  a  murderer?  " 

Our  guide's  only  answer  was  a  deep  breath  that  left  us  twice 
as  curious  as  before. 

"  If  we  go  past,  will  any  harm  come  to  us  ?  " 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  369 

"Oh,  no!  " 

"  Will  you  go  with  us  ?  " 

".No,  sir!  " 

"  Then  we  shall  go,  if  you  will  assure  us  that  there  is  no 
danger  for  us." 

"  I  do  not  say  that,"  the  fisherman  answered  quickly;  "I 
only  say  that  the  one  who  is  there  will  say  nothing  to  you, 
and  will  do  you  no  harm.  Oh,  good  heavens  !  he  will  not 
so  much  as  stir  from  his  place." 

"Then  who  is  it  ?  " 

"A  man  !  " 

Never  were  two  syllables  uttered  in  such  a  tragical  fashion. 

At  that  moment  we  were  some  twenty  paces  away  from  the 
ridge  about  which  the  sea  was  lapping.  Our  guide  took  the 
way  that  avoided  the  rocks,  and  we  held  straight  on  for  them, 
but  Pauline  took  my  arm.  Our  guide  quickened  his  pace  so 
as  to  reach  the  spot  where  the  two  ways  met  again  at  the  same 
time  as  ourselves.  He  thought,  no  doubt,  that  when  we  had 
seen  "  the  man,"  we  should  hurry  from  the  place.  This 
kindled  our  curiosity ;  it  became  so  strong  that  our  hearts 
beat  fast,  as  if  a  feeling  of  terror  possessed  us  both.  In  spite 
of  the  heat  of  the  day  and  a  certain  weariness  after  our  walk 
over  the  sands,  our  souls  were  steeped  in  the  ineffable  languid 
calm  of  an  ecstasy  that  possessed  us  both,  brimming  with  pure 
joy,  that  can  only  be  compared  with  the  delight  of  hearing 
exquisite  music — music  like  the  Andiamo  mio  be?i  of  Mozart. 
When  two  souls  are  blended  in  one  pure  thought,  are  they 
not  like  two  sweet  voices  singing  together  ?  Before  you  can 
appreciate  the  emotion  that  thrilled  us  both,  you  must  like- 
wise share  in  the  half-voluptuous  mood  in  which  the  morn- 
ing's experiences  had  steeped  us. 

If  you  had  watched  for  a  while  some  daintily-colored  wood- 
dove  on  a  swaying  branch,  above  a  spring,  you  would  utter  a 
cry  of  distress  if  you  saw  a  hawk  pounce  down,  bury  claws  of 
steel  in  its  heart,  and  bear  it  away  with  the  murderous  speed 
24 


370  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

with  which  powder  wings  a  bullet.  We  had  scarcely  set  foot 
in  the  space  before  the  cavern,  a  sort  of  esplanade  some  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  sea,  protected  from  the  surge  by  the  steep 
rocks  that  sloped  to  the  water's  edge,  when  we  were  conscious 
of  an  electric  thrill,  something  like  the  shock  of  a  sudden 
awakening  by  some  noise  in  a  silent  night.  Both  of  us  had 
seen  a  man  sitting  there  on  a  block  of  granite,  and  he  had 
looked  at  us. 

That  glance,  from  two  bloodshot  eyes,  was  like  the  flash  of 
fire  from  a  cannon,  and  his  stoical  immobility  could  only  be 
compared  to  the  changeless  aspect  of  the"  granite  slabs  that  lay 
about  him.  Slowly  his  eyes  turned  towards  us;  his  body  as 
rigid  and  motionless  as  if  he  had  been  turned  to  stone  ;  then 
after  that  glance,  that  made  such  a  powerful  impression  upon 
our  minds,  his  eyes  turned  to  gaze  steadily  over  the  vast  stretch 
of  sea,  in  spite  of  the  glare  reflected  from  it,  as  the  eagle,  it  is 
said,  gazes  at  the  sun  without  lowering  his  eyelids,  nor  did  he 
look  up  again  from  the  waves. 

Try  to  call  up  before  you,  dear  uncle,  some  gnarled  oak 
stump,  with  all  its  branches  lately  lopped  away,  rearing  its 
head,  like  a  strange  apparition,  by  the  side  of  a  lonely  road, 
and  you  will  have  a  clear  idea  of  this  man  that  we  saw.  The 
form  of  an  age-worn  Hercules,  the  face  of  Olympian  Jove 
bearing  marks  of  the  ravages  of  time,  of  a  life  of  rough  toil 
upon  the  sea,  of  sorrow  within,  of  coarse  food,  and  darkened 
as  if  blasted  by  lightning.  I  saw  the  muscles,  like  a  frame- 
work of  iron,  standing  out  upon  his  hard  shaggy  hands,  and 
all  things  else  about  him  indicated  a  vigorous  constitution. 
In  a  corner  of  the  cavern  I  noticed  a  fairly  large  heap  of  moss, 
and  on  a  rough  slab  of  granite,  that  did  duty  as  a  table,  a 
piece  of  a  round  loaf  lay  over  the  mouth  of  a  stoneware  pitcher. 

Never  among  my  visions  of  the  life  led  in  the  desert  by 
early  Christian  anchorites  had  I  pictured  a  face  more  awe- 
inspiring,  more  grand  and  terrible  in  repentance  than  this. 
And  even  you,  dear  uncle,  in  your  experience  of  the  confes- 


A  SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  371 

sional,  have,  perhaps,  never  seen  a  penitence  so  grand  ;  for 
this  remorse  seemed  to  be  drowned  in  a  sea  of  prayers,  of 
prayers  that  flowed  for  ever  from  a  dumb  despair.  This  fish- 
erman, this  rough  Breton  sailor,  was  sublime  through  a  thought 
hidden  within  him.  Had  those  eyes  shed  tears?  Had  the 
hand  of  that  rough-hewn  statue  ever  struck  a  blow  ?  A  fierce 
honesty  was  stamped  upon  a  rugged  forehead  where  force  of 
character  had  still  left  some  traces  of  the  gentleness  that  is 
the  prerogative  of  all  true  strength.  Was  that  brow,  so  scored 
and  furrowed  with  wrinkles,  compatible  with  a  great  heart? 
How  came  this  man  to  abide  with  the  granite?  How  had  the 
granite  entered  into  him  ?  Where  did  the  granite  end  and  the 
man  begin  ?  A  whole  crowd  of  thoughts  passed  through  our 
minds  ;  and,  as  our  guide  had  expected,  we  went  by  quickly 
and  in  silence.  When  he  saw  us  again,  we  were  either  per- 
turbed with  a  sense  of  dread  or  overcome  by  the  strangeness 
of  this  thing,  but  he  did  not  remind  us  that  his  prediction  had 
come  true. 

"  Did  you  see  him  ?  "  he  asked. 

"What  is  the  man?" 

"They  call  him  the  man  under  a  vow." 

You  can  readily  imagine  how  we  both  turned  to  our  fisher- 
man at  these  words.  He  was  a  simple-minded  fellow;  he  un- 
derstood our  mute  inquiry;  and  this  is  the  story  which  I  have 
tried  to  tell,  as  far  as  possible,  in  the  homely  language  in 
which  he  told  it. 

"The  Croisic  folk  and  the  people  at  Batz  think  that  he  has 
been  guilty  of  something,  madame,  and  that  he  is  doing  a 
penance  laid  upon  him  by  a  famous  rector,  to  whom  he  went 
to  confess,  beyond  Nantes.  There  are  some  who  think  that 
Cambremer  (that  is  his  name)  is  unlucky,  and  that  it  brings 
bad  luck  to  pass  through  the  air  he  breathes,  so  a  good  many 
of  them  before  going  round  the  rocks  will  stop  to  see  which 
way  the  wind  blows.  If  it  blows  from  the  nor' west,"  he  said, 
pointing  in  that  direction   with  his  finger,  "  they  would   not 


372  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

go  on  if  they  had  set  out  to  seek  a  bit  of  the  True  Cross ; 
they  turn  back  again ;  they  are  afraid.  Other  folk,  rich 
people  in  Croisic,  say  that  Cambremer  once  made  a  vow,  and 
that  is  why  he  is  called  'the  man  under  a  vow.'  He  never 
leaves  the  place ;  he  is  there  night  and  day. 

"There  is  some  show  of  reason  for  these  tales,"  he  added, 
turning  round  to  point  out  to  us  something  that  had  escaped 
our  notice.  "You  see  that  wooden  cross  that  he  has  set  up 
there  on  the  left  ;  that  is  to  show  that  he  has  put  himself 
under  the  protection  of  God  and  the  Holy  Virgin  and  the 
saints.  He  would  not  be  respected  as  he  is,  if  it  were  not 
that  the  terror  people  have  of  him  makes  him  as  safe  as  if  he 
had  a  guard  of  soldiers. 

"  He  has  not  said  a  word  since  he  went  into  prison  in  the 
open  air.  He  lives  on  bread  and  water  that  his  brother's 
little  girl  brings  him  every  morning,  a  little  slip  of  a  thing 
twelve  years  old  ;  he  has  left  all  he  has  to  her,  and  a  pretty 
child  she  is,  as  gentle  as  a  lamb,  and  full  of  fun,  a  dear  little 
pet.  She  has  blue  eyes  as  long  as  that''  he  went  on,  holding 
out  his  thumb,  "and  hair  like  a  cherub's.  When  you  begin 
— 'I  say,  Perotte  ' — (that  is  what  we  say  for  Pierrette,"  he  said, 
interrupting  himself;  "Saint  Pierre  is  her  patron  saint,  Cam- 
bremer's  name  is  Pierre  and  he  was  her  godfather) — ■  I  say, 
Perotte,  what  does  your  uncle  say  to  you  ?  ' — '  He  says  noth- 
ing,' says  she,  'nothing  whatever,  nothing  at  all.' — 'Well, 
then,  what  does  he  do  when  you  go?' — 'He  kisses  me  on 
the  forehead  of  a  Sunday.' — 'Aren't  you  afraid  of  him?' 
— 'Not  a  bit,'  says  she;  'he  is  my  godfather.' — He  will 
not  have  any  one  else  bring  his  food.  Perotte  says  that 
he  smiles  when  she  comes ;  but  you  might  as  well  say  that  the 
sun  shone  in  a  fog,  for  he  is  as  gloomy  as  a  sea-mist,  they 
say." 

"But  you  are  exciting  our  curiosity  without  satisfying  it," 
I  broke  in.  "Do  you  know  what  brought  him  there?  Was 
it  trouble,  or  remorse,  or  crime,  or  is  he  mad,  or  what  ?  " 


A   SEASIDE    TfiAGEDY.  373 

"Eh  !  sir,  there  is  hardly  a  soul  save  my  father  and  me 
that  knows  the  rights  of  the  matter.  My  mother  that's  gone 
was  in  service  in  the  house  of  the  justice  that  Cambremer 
went  to.  The  priest  told  him  to  go  to  a  justice,  and  only 
gave  him  absolution  on  that  condition,  if  the  tale  is  true  that 
they  tell  in  the  haven.  My  poor  mother  overheard  Cam- 
bremer without  meaning  to  do  so,  because  the  kitchen  was 
alongside  the  sitting-room  in  the  justice's  house.  So  she 
heard.  She  is  dead,  and  the  justice  has  gone  too.  My  mother 
made  us  promise,  my  father  and  me,  never  to  let  on  to  the 
people  round  about ;  and  I  can  tell  you  this,  every  hair 
bristled  up  on  my  head  that  night  when  my  mother  told  us  the 
story " 

"  Well,  then,  tell  it  to  us ;  we  will  not  repeat  it." 

The  fisherman  looked  at  us  both — then  he  went  on,  some- 
thing after  this  fashion — 

<i  Pierre  Cambremer,  whom  you  saw  yonder,  is  the  oldest 
of  the  family.  The  Cambremers  have  been  seamen  from 
father  to  son  ;  you  see,  their  name  means  that  the  sea  has 
always  bent  under  them."  The  one  you  saw  had  a  fishing- 
boat,  several  fishing-boats,  and  the  sardine-fishery  was  his 
trade,  though  he  did  deep-sea  fishing  as  well  for  the  dealers. 
He  would  have  fitted  out  a  bigger  vessel,  and  gone  to  the 
cod-fishing,  if  he  had  not  been  so  fond  of  his  wife;  a  fine 
woman  she  was,  a  Brouin  from  Guerande,  a  strapping  girl 
with  a  warm  heart.  She  was  so  fond  of  Cambremer  that  she 
would  never  let  her  man  go  away  from  her  for  longer  than  for 
the  sardine-fishing.  They  lived  down  yonder,  there!  "  said 
our  fisherman,  standing  on  a  hillock  to  point  out  to  us  an 
islet  in  the  little  inland  sea  between  the  dunes  where  we  were 
walking  and  the  salt  marshes  at  Guerande.  "  Do  you  see  the 
house?     It  belonged  to  him. 

"  Jacquette  Brouin  and  Cambremer  had  but  one  child,  a 
boy,  whom  they  loved  like — what  shall  I  say? — like  an  only 
child  ;  they  were  crazy  over  him.     Their  little  Jacques  might 


374  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

have  done  something  (asking  your  pardon)  into  the  soup,  and 
they  would  have  thought  it  sweetened  it.  Times  and  times 
again  we  used  to  see  them  buying  the  finest  toys  at  the  fair 
for  him!  There  was  no  sense  in  it — everybody  told  them  so. 
Little  Cambremer  found  out  that  he  could  do  as  he  liked  with 
them,  and  he  grew  as  willful  as  a  red  donkey.  If  any  one 
told  his  father,  'Your  boy  has  all  but  killed  little  So-and-so,' 
Cambremer  used  to  laugh  and  say,  '  Bah  !  he  will  be  a  meddle- 
some sailor  !  He  will  command  the  king's  ships.'  Another 
would  say,  '  Pierre  Cambremer,  do  you  know  that  your  lad 
put  out  Pougaud's  little  girl's  eye?'"  '  He  will  be  one  for 
the  girls,'  Pierre  would  say.  It  was  all  right  in  his  eyes.  By 
the  time  the  little  rascal  was  ten  years  old  he  knocked  every- 
body about,  and  twisted  the  fowls'  necks  for  fun,  and  ripped 
open  the  pigs ;  he  was  as  bloodthirsty  as  a  weasel.  '  He  will 
make  a  famous  soldier ! '  said  Cambremer ;  *  he  has  a  liking 
for  bloodshed.' 

"  You  see,  I  myself  remember  all  this,"  said  our  fisherman ; 
"and  so  does  Cambremer,"  he  added,  after  a  pause. 

"Jacques  Cambremer  grew  up  to  be  fifteen  or  sixteen  and 
he  was — well,  a  bully.  He  would  go  off  and  amuse  himself 
at  Guerande,  and  cut  a  figure  at  Savenay.  He  must  have 
money  for  that.  So  he  began  robbing  his  mother,  and  she 
did  not  dare  to  tell  her  husband.  Cambremer  was  so  honest 
that  if  any  one  had  overpaid  him  twopence  on  an  account,  he 
would  have  gone  twenty  leagues  to  pay  it  back.  At  last  one 
day  the  mother  had  nothing  left.  While  the  father  was  away 
at  the  fishing,  Jacques  made  off  with  the  dresser,  the  plenish- 
ing, and  the  sheets  and  the  linen,  and  left  nothing  but  the 
four  walls;  he  had  sold  all  the  things  in  the  house  to  pay  for 
his  carryings-on  at  Nantes.  The  poor  woman  cried  about  it 
day  and  night.  She  would  have  to  tell  his  father  when  he 
came  back,  and  she  was  afraid  of  the  father ;  not  for  herself 
though,  not  she  I     So  when  Pierre  Cambremer  came  back  and 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  375 

saw  his  house  furnished  with  things  the  neighbors  had  loaned 
her,  he  asked — 

"  '  What  does  this  mean  ? ' 

"And  the  poor  thing,  more  dead  than  alive,  answered, 
f  We  have  been  robbed.' 

"  '  What  has  become  of  Jacques  ?  ' 

"  '  Jacques  is  away  on  a  spree  !  ' 

"  Nobody  knew  where  the  rogue  had  gone. 

"  '  He  is  too  fond  of  his  fun,'  said  Pierre. 

"  Six  months  afterwards  the  poor  father  heard  that  Jacques 
had  gotten  into  trouble  at  Nantes.  He  goes  over  on  foot — 
it  is  quicker  than  going  by  sea — puts  his  hand  on  his  son's 
shoulder,  and  fetches  him  home.  He  did  not  ask  him, 
'  What  have  you  been  doing  ?  ' 

"  '  If  you  don't  keep  steady  here  for  a  couple  of  years  with 
your  mother  and  me,'  he  said,  '  and  help  with  the  fishing, 
and  behave  yourself  like  a  decent  fellow,  you  will  have  me  to 
reckon  with  !  ' 

"  The  harebrained  youngster,  counting  on  the  weakness  his 
father  and  mother  had  for  him,  made  a  grimace  at  his  father, 
and  thereupon  Pierre  fetched  him  a  slap  in  the  face  that  laid 
up  Jacques  for  six  months  afterwards. 

"The  poor  mother  was  breaking  her  heart  all  the  time. 
One  night  she  was  lying  quietly  asleep  by  her  husband's  side, 
when  she  heard  a  noise  and  sat  up,  and  got  a  stab  in  the  arm 
from  a  knife.  She  shrieked;  and  when  they  had  struck  a 
light,  Pierre  Cambremer  found  that  his  wife  was  wounded. 
He  thought  it  was  a  robber,  as  if  there  were  any  robbers  in 
our  part  of  the  world,  when  you  can  carry  ten  thousand  francs 
in  golcj  from  Croisic  to  Saint  Nazaire,  and  no  one  would  so 
much  as  ask  you  what  you  had  under  your  arm.  Pierre  looked 
about  for  Jacques,  and  could  not  find  him  anywhere.  In  the 
morning  the  unnatural  wretch  had  the  face  to  come  back  and 
say  that  he  had  been  at  Batz. 

"  I  should  tell  you  that  the  mother  did  not  know  where  to 


376  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

hide  her  money.  Cambremer  himself  used  to  leave  his  with 
M.  Dupotet  at  Croisic.  Their  son's  wild  ways  had  eaten  up 
crowns  and  francs  and  gold  louis ;  they  were  ruined,  as  you 
may  say,  and  it  was  hard  on  folk  who  had  about  twelve  thou- 
sand livres,  including  their  little  island.  Nobody  knew  how 
much  Cambremer  had  paid  down  at  Nantes  to  have  his  son 
back.  Their  luck  went  from  bad  to  worse.  One  of  Cam- 
bremer's  brothers  was  unfortunate,  and  wanted  help.  Pierre 
told  him,  to  comfort  him,  that  Jacques  and  Perotte  (the 
younger  brother's  girl)  should  be  married  some  day.  Then, 
to  put  him  in  the  way  of  earning  his  bread,  he  took  him  to 
help  in  the  fishing ;  for  Joseph  Cambremer  was  obliged  to 
work  with  his  own  hands.  His  wife  had  died  of  the  fever, 
and  he  had  to  pay  some  one  else  to  nurse  Perotte  till  she  was 
weaned.  Pierre  Cambremer's  wife  owed  as  much  as  a  hundred 
francs  to  different  people  on  the  baby's  account  for  linen  and 
things,  and  two  or  three  months  to  big  Frelu,  who  had  a  child 
by  Simon  Gaudry,  and  nursed  Perotte.  La  Cambremer,  too, 
had  sewn  a  Spanish  doubloon  into  the  flock  of  her  mattress, 
and  written  on  it,  'For  Perotte.'  You  see,  she  had  had  a 
good  education,  and  could  write  like  a  clerk;  she  had  taught 
her  son  to  read  too — that  was  the  ruin  of  him. 

"  Nobody  knew  how  it  came  about,  but  that  scoundrel 
Jacques  got  wind  of  the  gold  and  took  it,  and  went  off  to  get 
drunk  at  Croisic.  Old  Cambremer,  just  as  if  it  had  happened 
on  purpose,  came  in  with  his  boat ;  and  as  he  came  up  to  the 
house  he  saw  a  scrap  of  paper  floating  about.  He  picked  it 
up  and  took  it  in  to  his  wife;  and  she  dropped  down,  for  she 
knew  her  own  handwriting.  Cambremer  said  not  a  word. 
He  went  over  to  Croisic,  and  heard  there  that  his  son  was  in 
the  billiard-room.  Then  he  sent  for  the  good  woman  who 
kept  the  cafe,  and  said  to  her — 

"  '  I  told  Jacques  not  to  change  a  piece  of  gold  that  he  will 
pay  his  score  with :  let  me  have  it ;  I  will  wait  at  the  door, 
and  you  shall  have  silver  for  it.' 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  377 

"  The  woman  of  the  house  brought  him  out  the  gold-piece. 
Cambremer  took  it. 

"  '  Good  !  '  said  he,  and  he  went  away  home. 

"All  the  town  knew  that.  But  this  I  know,  and  the  rest 
of  them  have  only  a  sort  of  general  guess  at  how  it  was.  He 
told  his  wife  to  set  their  room  to  rights;  it  is  on  the  ground 
floor.  He  kindled  a  fire  on  the  hearth,  he  lighted  two  candies, 
and  put  two  chairs  on  one  side  of  the  fireplace,  and  a  three- 
legged  stool  on  the  other.  Then  he  bade  his  wife  put  out  the 
suit  he  was  married  in,  and  to  put  on  her  wedding-gown.  He 
dressed  himself;  and  then  when  he  was  dressed,  he  went  out 
for  his  brother,  and  told  him  to  keep  watch  outside  the  house, 
and  give  warning  if  he  heard  any  sound  on  either  beach,  here 
by  the  sea  or  yonder  on  the  salt  marshes  at  Guerande.  When 
he  thought  his  wife  must  be  dressed,  he  went  in  again ;  he 
loaded  a  gun  and  hid  it  in  the  chimney-corner. 

"Back  comes  Jacques  to  the  house.  It  was  late  when  he 
came  ;  he  had  been  drinking  and  gambling  up  to  ten  o'clock; 
he  had  got  some  one  to  ferry  him  over  at  Carnouf  point.  His 
uncle  heard  him  hail  the  boat,  and  went  to  look  for  him  along 
the  side  of  the  salt  marshes,  and  passed  him  without  saying 
anything. 

"When  Jacques  came  in,  his  father  spoke  : 

"  '  Sit  you  down  there,'  he  said,  pointing  to  the  stool.  '  You 
are  before  your  father  and  mother;  you  have  sinned  against 
them,  and  they  are  your  judges.' 

"  Jacques  began  to  bellow,  for  Cambremer's  face  twitched 
strangely.     The  mother  sat  there,  stiff  as  an  oar. 

"  <  If  you  make  any  noise,  if  you  stir,  if  you  don't  sit  straight 
up  like  a  mast  on  your  stool,'  said  Pierre,  pointing  his  gun  at 
him,  '  I  will  shoot  you  like  a  dog.' 

"  Cambremer's  son  grew  mute  as  a  fish,  and  all  this  time 
the  mother  said  not  a  word. 

"  '  Here  is  a  bit  of  paper  that  wrapped  up  a  Spanish  gold  coin. 
That  coin  was   in  your  mother's   mattress.     No  one   knew 

-N 


378  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

where  it  was  except  your  mother.  I  found  the  bit  of  paper 
floating  on  the  water  when  I  came  in.  Only  this  evening  you 
changed  the  piece  of  Spanish  gold  at  Mother  Fleurant's,  and 
your  mother  cannot  find  the  coin  in  her  mattress.  Explain 
yourself.' 

"  Jacques  said  that  he  had  not  taken  his  mother's  money, 
and  that  he  had  had  the  coin  at  Nantes. 

"  '  So  much  the  better,'  said  Pierre.  '  How  can  you  prove 
it?' 

"'I  did  have  it.' 

"  '  You  did  not  take  your  mother's  coin  ? ' 

"'No.' 

"  '  Can  you  swear  it  on  your  salvation  ? ' 

"  He  was  just  going  to  swear,  when  his  mother  looked  up 
and  said — 

"  'Jacques,  my  child,  take  care;  do  not  swear  if  it  is  not 
true.  You  can  repent  and  mend  ;  there  is  still  time,'  and  she 
cried  at  that. 

"  '  You  are  a  So-and-so,'  said  he ;  '  you  have  always  tried  to 
ruin  me.' 

"Cambremer  turned  white,  and  said,  'What  you  have  just 
said  to  your  mother  goes  to  swell  your  account.  Now,  come 
to  the  point !     Will  you  swear?  ' 

"'Yes.' 

"'Stop  a  bit,'  said  Pierre,  'was  there  a  cross  on  your 
coin  like  the  mark  the  sardine  merchant  put  on  the  coin  he 
paid  me  ? ' 

"Jacques  grew  sober  at  that,  and  began  to  cry. 

"'That  is  enough  talk,'  said  Pierre.  'I  say  nothing  of 
what  you  have  done  before — I  had  no  mind  that  a  Cambremer 
should  die  in  the  market-place  at  Croisic.  Say  your  prayers, 
and  let  us  be  quick  !  A  priest  is  coming  to  hear  your  confes- 
sion.' 

"  The  mother  had  gone  out  of  the  room  that  she  might  not 
hear  her  son's  doom.     As  soon  as  she  went  out,  Joseph  Cam- 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  379 

bremer,  the  uncle,  came  in  with  the  rector  from  Piriac.  To 
him  Jacques  would  not  open  his  mouth.  He  was  shrewd  ;  he 
knew  his  father  well  enough  to  feel  sure  that  he  would  not  kill 
him  till  he  had  confessed. 

"'Thanks.  Pardon  us,  sir,'  Cambremer  said  to  the 
priest  when  Jacques  continued  obstinate.  '  I  meant  to  give 
my  son  a  lesson,  and  I  beg  you  to  say  nothing*  about  it.  As 
for  you,'  he  went  on,  turning  to  Jacques,  'if  you  do  not 
mend  your  ways,  next  time  you  go  wrong  shall  be  the  last, 
and  shrift  or  no  shrift,  I  will  make  an  end  of  it.' 

"  He  sent  him  off  to  bed.  The  young  fellow  believed  him, 
and  fancied  that  he  could  make  things  right  with  his  father. 
He  slept.  His  father  sat  up.  When  he  saw  his  son  fast 
asleep,  he  covered  the  young  fellow's  mouth  with  hemp,  bound 
it  tightly  round  with  a  strip  of  sailcloth  ;  then  he  tied  him 
hand  and  foot.  He  writhed,  he  'shed  tears  of  blood,'  so 
Cambremer  told  the  justice.  What  would  you  have  !  His 
mother  flung  herself  at  the  father's  feet. 

"  '  He  is  doomed,'  said  Cambremer;  '  you  will  help  me  to 
put  him  into  the  boat.' 

"  She  would  not  help  him,  and  Cambremer  did  it  alone ; 
he  fastened  him  down  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  and  tied  a 
stone  round  his  neck,  put  out  of  the  bay,  reached  the  sea,  and 
came  out  as  far  as  the  rock  where  he  sits  now.  Then  the 
poor  mother,  who  had  made  her  brother-in-law  take  her  over, 
cried  out  in  vain  for  mercy  ;  it  was  like  throwing  a  stone  at  a 
wolf.  By  the  moonlight  she  saw  the  father  take  the  son, 
towards  whom  her  heart  still  yearned,  and  fling  him  into  the 
water ;  and  as  there  was  not  a  breath  of  air  stirring,  she  heard 
the  gurgling  sound,  and  then  nothing — not  an  eddy,  not  a 
ripple  ;  the  sea  is  a  famous  keeper  of  secrets,  that  it  is ! 
When  Cambremer  reached  the  place  to  silence  her  moans,  he 
found  her  lying  like  one  dead.  The  two  brothers  could  not 
carry  her,  so  they  had  to  put  her  in  the  boat  that  had  carried 


380  A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 

her  son,  and  they  took  her  round  home  by  way  of  the  Croisic 
channel. 

"Ah,  well  !  la  bdle  Brouin,  as  they  called  her,  did  not 
live  the  week  out.  She  died,  asking  her  husband  to  burn  the 
accursed  boat.  Oh  !  he  did  it ;  yes,  he  did  it.  He  himself 
was  queer  after  that ;  he  did  not  know  what  ailed  him ;  he 
reeled  about  l*ke  a  man  who  cannot  carry  his  wine.  Then  he 
went  off  somewhere  for  ten  days,  and  came  back  again  to  put 
himself  where  you  saw  him ;  and  since  he  has  been  there,  he 
has  not  said  a  word." 

The  fisherman  told  us  the  story  in  a  few  minutes,  in  words 
even  more  simple  than  those  that  I  have  used.  Working 
people  make  little  comment  on  what  they  tell ;  they  give  you 
the  facts  that  strike  them,  and  interpret  them  by  their  own 
feelings.  His  language  was  as  keenly  incisive  as  the  stroke 
of  a  hatchet. 

"I  shall  not  go  to  Batz,"  said  Pauline,  when  we  reached 
the  outer  rim  of  the  lake. 

We  went  back  to  Croisic  by  way  of  the  salt  marshes,  the 
fisherman  guiding  us  through  the  labyrinth.  He  had  also 
grown  silent.  Our  mood  had  changed.  Both  of  us  were 
deep  in  melancholy  musings,  and  saddened  by  the  mournful 
story  which  explained  the  swift  presentiment  that  we  had  felt  at 
the  sight  of  Cambremer.  We  had  each  of  us  sufficient  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature  to  fill  in  the  outlines  of  the  three  lives 
that  our  guide  had  sketched  for  us.  The  tragedy  of  these 
three  human  beings  rose  up  before  us  as  if  we  saw  scene  after 
scene  of  a  drama  crowned  by  the  father's  expiation  of  an  in- 
evitable crime.  We  did  not  dare  to  look  at  the  rocks  where 
he  sat,  the  fate-bound  soul  who  struck  terror  into  a  whole 
country-side.  A  few  clouds  overcast  the  sky.  The  mist  rose 
on  the  horizon  of  the  sea.  We  were  walking  through  the 
most  acrid  dreariness  that  I  have  ever  seen  ;  the  earth  beneath 
our  feet  seemed  sick  and  unwholesome  in  these  salt  marshes, 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY.  381 

which,  with  good  reason,  might  be  called  a  cutaneous  erup- 
tion on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  ground  is  scored  over  in 
rough  squares,  with  high  banks  of  gray  earth  about  them  ; 
each  is  full  of  brackish  water ;  the  salt  rises  to  the  surface. 
These  artificial  hollows  are  intersected  by  raised  pathways,  on 
which  the  workmen  stand  to  skim  the  surface  of  the  pools 
with  long  scrapers;  and  the  salt,  when  collected,  is  deposited 
to  drain  on  circular  platforms  set  at  even  distances,  till  it  is  fit 
to  lay  up  in  heaps.  For  two  hours  we  skirted  this  dreary 
chessboard,  where  the  salt  stops  the  growth  of  any  green 
thing;  occasionally,  at  long  intervals,  we  came  upon  one  or 
two  paludiers,  so  they  call  the  men  who  work  among  the  salt 
marshes.  These  workers,  or  it  should  rather  be  said,  this 
race  apart  among  the  Bretons,  wear  a  special  costume,  a 
white  jacket  rather  like  those  that  brewers  wear.  They  marry 
only  among  themselves  ;  a  girl  belonging  to  this  tribe  has 
never  been  known  to  marry  any  one  but  a  paludier.  The 
hideous  desolation  of  those  swamps  where  the  boggy  soil  is 
scraped  up  into  symmetrical  heaps,  the  grayness  of  the  soil, 
from  which  every  Breton  flower  shrinks  in  disgust,  were  in 
keeping  with  the  sadness  within  us.  We  reached  the  spot 
where  you  cross  an  arm  of  the  sea,  the  channel  doubtless 
through  which  the  salt-water  breaks  in  upon  the  low-lying 
land  and  leaves  its  deposits  on  the  soil,  and  we  were  glad  to 
see  the  scanty  plant-life  growing  along  the  edge  of  the  sand. 
As  we  crossed  it,  we  saw  the  island  in  the  lagoon  where  the 
Cambremers  once  lived,  and  turned  our  heads  away. 

When  we  reached  our  inn  we  noticed  a  billiard-table  in  the 
room  on  the  ground  floor,  and  when  we  learned  that  it  was 
the  only  public  billiard-table  in  Croisic,  we  made  our  prepara- 
tions for  departure  that  night,  and  on  the  morrow  we  went  to 
Guerande. 

Pauline  was  still  depressed,  and  I  myself  felt  a  return  of  the 
burning  sensation  that  scorches  my  brain.  I  was  so  griev- 
ously haunted  by  the  visions  of  those  three  lives  that  I  had 


382 


A   SEASIDE    TRAGEDY. 


conjured  up,  that  Pauline  said,  "Write  the  story,  Louis,  and 
the  fever  may  take  a  turn." 

So,  dear  uncle,  I  have  written  the  story  for  you ;  but  our 
adventure  has  already  undone  the  good  effects  of  repose,  the 
result  of  our  stay  here  and  at  the  Baths. 

Paris,  November  20,  1834. 


THE   COUNTRY  PARSON 
ALBERT  SAVARON 


PREFACE. 

Perhaps  in  no  instance  of  Balzac's  work  is  his  singular 
fancy  for  pulling  that  work  about  more  remarkably  instanced 
and  illustrated  than  in  the  case  of  "  The  Country  Parson." 
The  double  date,  1837-1845,  which  the  author  attached  to  it, 
in  his  usual  conscientious  manner,  to  indicate  these  revisions, 
has  a  greater  signification  than  almost  anywhere  else.  When 
the  book,  or  rather  its  constituent  parts,  first  appeared  in  the 
Presse  for  1839,  having  been  written  the  winter  before,  not 
only  was  it  very  different  in  detail,  but  the  order  of  the  parts 
was  altogether  dissimilar.  Balzac  here  carried  out  his  favorite 
plan — a  plan  followed  by  many  other  authors  no  doubt,  but 
always,  as  it  seems  to  me,  of  questionable  wisdom — that  of 
beginning  in  the  middle  and  then  "  throwing  back"  with  a 
long  retrospective  and  explanatory  digression. 

In  this  version  the  story  of  Tascheron's  crime  and  its  pun- 
ishment came  first ;  and  it  was  not  till  after  the  execution 
that  the  early  history  of  Veronique  (who  gave  her  name  to 
this  part  as  to  a  "  Suite  du  Cure  de  Village  ")  was  introduced. 
This  history  ceased  at  the  crisis  of  her  life  ;  and  when  it  was 
taken  up  in  a  third  part,  called  "  Veronique  au  Tombeau,"  only 
the  present  conclusion  of  the  book,  with  her  confession,  was 
given.  The  long  account  of  her  sojourn  at  Montegnac,  of  her 
labors  there,  of  the  episode  of  Farrabesche,  and  so  forth,  did 
not  appear  till  1841,  when  the  whole  book,  with  the  in- 
versions and  insertions  just  indicated,  appeared  in  such  a 
changed  form  that  even  the  indefatigable  M.  de  Lovenjoul 
dismisses  as  "  impossible"  the  idea  of  exhibiting  a  complete 
picture  of  the  various  changes  made.  Nor  was  the  author 
even  yet  contented ;  for  in  1845,  before  establishing  it  in  its 

(ix) 


x  PREFACE. 

place  in  the  "  Comedie,"  be  not  only,  as  was  his  wont,  took  out 
the  chapter-headings,  leaving  five  divisions  only,  but  intro- 
duced other  alterations,  resulting  in  the  present  condition  of 
the  book. 

As  the  book  stands  it  may  be  said  to  consist  of  three  parts 
united  rather  by  identity  of  the  personages  who  act  in  them 
than  by  exact  dramatic  connection.  There  is,  to  take  the 
title-part  first  (though  it  is  by  no  means  the  most  really  impor- 
tant or  pervading)  the  picture  of  "The  Country  Parson," 
which  is  almost  an  exact,  and  beyond  doubt  a  designed,  pen- 
dant to  that  of  "  The  Country  Doctor."  *  The  Abb6  Bonnet 
indeed  is  not  able  to  carry  out  economic  ameliorations,  as 
Dr.  Benassis  is,  personally,  but  by  inducing  Veronique  to  do 
so  he  brings  about  the  same  result,  and  on  an  even  larger 
scale.  His  personal  action  (with  the  necessary  changes  for 
his  profession)  is  also  tolerably  identical,  and  on  the  whole 
the  two  portraits  may  fairly  be  hung  together  as  Balzac's  ideal 
representations  of  the  good  man  in  soul-curing  and  body-cur- 
ing respectively.  Both  are  largely  conditioned  by  his  eigh- 
teenth century  fancy  for  "playing  Providence,"  and  by  his 
delight  in  extensive  financial-commercial  schemes.  But  the 
beauty  of  the  portraiture  of  the  "  Cure  "  is  nearly,  if  not  quite 
equal,  to  that  of  the  doctor,  though  the  institution  of  celibacy 
has  prevented  Balzac  from  giving  a  key  to  the  conduct  of 
Bonnet  quite  as  sufficient  as  that  which  he  furnished  for  the 
conduct  of  Benassis. 

The  second  part  of  the  book  is  the  crime — episodic  as  re- 
gards the  criminal,  cardinal  as  regards  other  points — of  Tas- 
cheron.  Balzac  was  very  fond  of  "his  crimes;"  and  it  is 
quite  worth  while  in  connection  with  his  handling  of  the  mur- 
der here  to  study  the  curious  story  of  his  actual  interference 
in  the  famous  Peytel  case,  which  also  interested  Thackeray  so 
much  in  his  Paris  days.  The  Tascheron  case  itself  (which 
from  a  note  appears  to  have  been  partly  suggested  by  some 
actual  affair)  no  doubt  has  interests  for  *>hose  who  like  such 


PREFACE.  xi 

things,  and  the  picture  of  the  criminal  in  prison  is  very  strik- 
ing. But  we  see  and  know  so  very  little  of  Tascheron  him- 
self, and  even  to  the  very  last  (which  is  long  afterwards)  we 
are  left  so  much  in  the  dark  as  to  his  love  for  Veronique, 
that  the  thing  has  an  extraneous  air.  It  is  like  a  short  story 
foisted  in. 

This  objection  connects  itself  at  once  with  a  similar  one  to 
the  delineation  of  Veronique.  There  is  nothing  in  her  con- 
duct intrinsically  impossible,  or  even  improbable.  A  girl  of 
her  temperament,  at  once,  as  often  happens,  strongly  sensual 
and  strongly  devotional,  deprived  of  her  good  looks  by  illness, 
thrown  into  the  arms  of  a  husband  physically  repulsive,  and 
after  a  short  time  not  troubling  himself  to  be  amiable  in  any 
other  way,  might  very  well  take  refuge  in  the  substantial,  if 
not  ennobling,  consolations  offered  by  a  good-looking  and 
amiable  young  fellow  of  the  lower  class.  Her  conduct  at  the 
time  of  the  crime  (her  exact  complicity  in  which  is,  as  we 
have  said,  rather  imperfectly  indicated)  is  also  fairly  prob- 
able, and  to  her  repentance  and  amendment  of  life  no  excep- 
tion can  be  taken.  But  only  in  this  last  stage  do  we  really 
see  anything  of  the  inside  of  VSronique's  nature;  and  even 
then  we  do  not  see  it  completely.  The  author's  silence  on 
the  details  of  the  actual  liaison  with  Tascheron  has  its  advan- 
tages, but  it  also  has  its  defects. 

Still,  the  book  is  one  of  great  attraction  and  interest,  and 
takes,  if  I  may  judge  by  my  own  experience,  a  high  rank  for 
enchaining  power  among  that  class  of  Balzac's  books  which 
cannot  be  put  exactly  highest.  If  the  changes  made  in  it  by 
its  author  have  to  some  extent  dislocated  it  as  a  whole,  they 
have  resulted  in  very  high  excellence  for  almost  all  the  parts. 

As  something  has  necessarily  been  said  already  about  the 
book-history  of  the  "  Country  Parson,"  little  remains  but  to 
give  exact  dates  and  places  of  appearance.  The  Presse  pub- 
lished the  (original)  first  part  in  December- January,  1838-39, 
the  original  second  ("  Veronique  ")  six  months  later,  and  the 


xii  PREFACE. 

third  ("Veronique  au  Tombeau")  in  August.  All  had 
chapters  and  chapter-titles.  As  a  book  it  was  in  its  first  com- 
plete form  published  by  Souverain  in  1841,  and  was  again 
altered  when  it  took  rank  in  the  "  Comedie  "  six  years  later. 

"  Albert  Savaron,"  with  its  enshrined  story  of  "L'Ambi- 
tieux  par  Amour"  (something  of  an  oddity  for  Balzac,  who 
often  puts  a  story  within  a  story,  but  less  formally  than  this) 
contains  various  appeals,  and  shows  not  a  few  of  its  author's 
well-known  interests  in  politics,  in  affairs,  in  newspapers,  not 
to  mention  the  enumerations  of  dots  and  fortunes  which  he 
never  could  refuse  himself.  The  affection  of  Savaron  for  the 
Duchesse  d'Argaiolo  may  interest  different  persons  differently. 
It  seems  to  me  a  little  fade.  But  the  character  of  Rosalie  de 
Watteville  is  in  a  very  different  rank.  Here  only,  except, 
perhaps,  in  the  case  of  Mademoiselle  de  Verneuil,  whose  un- 
lucky experiences  had  emancipated  her,  has  Balzac  depicted 
a  girl  full  of  character,  individuality,  and  life.  It  was  appar- 
ently necessary  that  Rosalie  should  be  made  not  wholly  amiable 
in  order  to  obtain  this  accession  of  wits  and  force,  and  to  be 
freed  from  the  fatal  gift  of  eandeur,  the  curse  of  the  French 
ingenue.  Her  creator  has  also  thought  proper  to  punish  her 
further,  and  cruelly,  at  the  end  of  the  book.  Nevertheless, 
though  her  story  may  be  less  interesting  than  either  of  theirs, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  put  her  in  a  much  higher  rank  as  a 
heroine  than  either  Eugenie  or  Ursule,  and  not  to  wish  that 
Balzac  had  included  the  conception  of  her  in  a  more  impor- 
tant structure  of  fiction. 

Albert  Savaron  appeared  in  sixty  headed  chapters  in  the 
Steele  for  May  and  June,  1842,  and  then  assumed  its  place  in 
the  "Com£die."  But  though  left  there,  it  also  formed  part. 
of  a  two-volume  issue  by  Souverain  in  1844,  in  company  with 
"La  Muse  du  Department."  "  Rosalie  "  was  at  first  named 
"Philomene." 

G.  S. 


THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

(Z<?  Cure  de  Village.) 

I. 

VERONIQUE. 

At  the  lower  end  of  Limoges,  at  the  corner  of  the  JV.ue  de 
la  Vieille-Poste  and  the  Rue  de  la  Cite,  there  stood,  some 
thirty  years  back,  an  old-fashioned  shop  of  the  kind  that 
seems  to  have  changed  in  nothing  since  the  middle  ages.  The 
great  stone  paving-slabs,  riven  with  countless  cracks,  were  laid 
upon  the  earth  ;  the  damp  oozed  up  through  them  here  and 
there  ;  while  the  heights  and  hollows  of  this  primitive  floor- 
ing would  have  tripped  up  those  who  were  not  careful  to 
observe  them.  Through  the  dust  on  the  walls  it  was  possible 
to  discern  a  sort  of  mosaic  of  timber  and  bricks,  iron  and 
stone,  a  heterogeneous  mass  which  owed  its  compact  solidity 
to  time,  and  perhaps  to  chance.  For  more  than  two  centu- 
ries the  huge  rafters  of  the  ceiling  had  bent  without  break- 
ing beneath  the  weight  of  the  upper  stories,  which  were 
constructed  of  wooden  framework,  protected  from  the  weather 
by  slates  arranged  in  a  geometrical  pattern  ;  altogether,  it  was 
a  quaint  example  of  a  burgess'  house  in  olden  times.  Once 
there  had  been  carved  figures  on  the  wooden  window-frames, 
but  sun  and  rain  had  destroyed  the  ornaments,  and  the  windows 
themselves  stood  all  awry;  some  bent  outwards,  some  bent  in, 
yet  others  were  minded  to  part  company,  and  one  and  all 
carried  a  little  soil  deposited  (it  would  be  hard  to  say  how) 
in  crannies  hollowed  by  the  rain,  where  a  few  shy  creeping 
plants  and  thin  weeds    grew  to  break  into    meagre  blossom 

«(d 


2  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

in  the  spring.  Velvet  mosses  covered  the  roof  and  the 
window-sills. 

The  pillar  which  supported  the  corner  of  the  house,  built 
though  it  was  of  composite  masonry,  that  is  tc  say,  partly 
of  stone,  partly  of  brick  and  flints,  was  alarming  to  behold 
by  reason  of  its  curvature ;  it  looked  as  though  it  must  give 
way  some  day  beneath  the  weight  of  the  superstructure  whose 
gable  projected  fully  six  inches.  For  which  reason  the  local 
authorities  and  the  board  of  works  bought  the  house  and 
pulled  it  down  to  widen  the  street.  The  venerable  corner 
pillar  had  its  charms  for  lovers  of  old  Limoges ;  it  carried  a 
pretty  sculptured  shrine  and  a  mutilated  image  of  the  Virgin, 
broken  during  the  Revolution.  Citizens  of  an  archaeological 
turn  could  discover  traces  of  the  stone  sill  meant  to  hold 
candlesticks  and  to  receive  wax-tapers  and  flowers  and  votive 
offerings  of  the  pious. 

Within  the  shop  a  wooden  staircase  at  the  further  end  gave 
access  to  the  two  floors  above  and  to  the  attics  in  the  roof.  The 
house  itself,  packed  in  between  two  neighboring  dwellings, 
had  little  depth  from  back  to  front,  and  no  light  save  from  the 
windows  which  gave  upon  the  street,  the  two  rooms  on  each 
floor  having  a  window  apiece,  one  looking  out  into  the  Rue 
de  la  Vieille-Poste  and  the  other  into  the  Rue  de  la  Cite.  In 
the  middle  ages  no  artisan  was  better  housed.  The  old  corner 
shop  must  surely  have  belonged  to  some  armorer  or  cutler, 
or  master  of  some  craft  which  could  be  carried  on  in  the 
open  air,  for  it  was  impossible  for  its  inmates  to  see  until 
the  heavily-ironed  shutters  were  taken  down  and  air  as  well 
as  light  freely  admitted.  There  were  two  doors  (as  is  usually 
the  case  where  a  shop  faces  into  two  streets),  one  on  either 
side  the  pillar.  But  for  the  interruption  of  the  white  thres- 
hold stones,  hollowed  by  the  wear  of  centuries,  the  whole  shop 
front  consisted  of  a  low  wall  which  rose  to  elbow  height. 
Along  the  top  of  this  wall  a  groove  had  been  contrived,  and  a 
similar  groove  ran  the  length  of  the  beam  above,  which  sup- 


V&RONIQUE.  3 

ported  the  weight  of  the  house  wall.  Into  these  grooves  slid 
the  heavy  shutters,  secured  by  huge  iron  bolts  and  bars  ;  and 
when  the  doorways  had  been  made  fast  in  like  manner,  the 
artisan's  workshop  was  as  good  as  a  fortress. 

For  the  first  twenty  years  of  this  present  century  the  Lim- 
ousins had  been  accustomed  to  see  the  interior  filled  up  with 
old  iron  and  brass,  cart-springs,  tires,  bells,  and  every  sort  of 
metal  from  the  demolition  of  houses ;  but  the  curious  in  the 
debris  of  the  old  town  discovered,  on  a  closer  inspection,  the 
traces  of  a  forge  in  the  place  and  a  long  streak  of  soot,  signs 
which  confirmed  the  guesses  of  archaeologists  as  to  the  original 
purpose  of  the  dwelling.  On  the  second  floor  there  was  a  liv- 
ing room  and  a  kitchen,  two  more  rooms  on  the  third,  and  an 
attic  in  the  roof,  which  was  used  as  a  warehouse  for  goods 
more  fragile  than  the  hardware  tumbled  down  pell-mell  in  the 
shop. 

The  house  had  been  first  let  and  then  sold  to  one  Sauviat, 
a  hawker,  who  from  1792  till  1796  traveled  in  Auvergne  for  a 
distance  of  fifty  leagues  round,  bartering  pots,  plates,  dishes, 
and  glasses,  all  the  gear,  in  fact,  needed  by  the  poorest  cot- 
tagers, for  old  iron,  brass,  lead,  and  metal  of  every  sort  and 
description.  The  Auvergnat  would  give  a  brown  earthen  pip- 
kin worth  a  couple  of  sous  for  a  pound  weight  of  lead  or  a 
couple  of  pounds  of  iron,  a  broken  spade  or  hoe,  or  an  old 
cracked  saucepan  ;  and  was  always  judge  in  his  own  cause, 
and  gave  his  own  weights.  In  three  years'  time  Sauviat  took 
another  trade  in  addition,  and  became  a  tinman. 

In  1793  he  was  able  to  buy  a  chateau  put  up  for  sale  by  the 
nation.  This  he  pulled  down  ;  and  doubtless  repeated  a  pro- 
fitable experiment  at  more  than  one  point  in  his  sphere  of 
operations.  After  a  while  these  first  essays  of  his  gave  him 
an  idea ;  he  suggested  a  piece  of  business  on  a  large  scale  to 
a  fellow-countryman  in  Paris  ;  and  so  it  befell  that  the  Black 
Band,  so  notorious  for  the  havoc  which  it  wrought  among  old 
buildings,  was  a  sprout  of  old  Sauviat's  brain,  the  invention 


4  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

of  the  hawker  whom  all  Limoges  had  seen  for  seven-and- 
twenty  years  in  his  tumble-down  shop  among  his  broken  bells, 
flails,  chains,  brackets,  twisted  leaden  gutters,  and  heteroge- 
neous old  iron.  In  justice  to  Sauviat,  it  should  be  said  that 
he  never  knew  how  large  and  how  notorious  the  association 
became ;  he  only  profited  by  it  to  the  extent  of  the  capital 
which  he  invested  with  the  famous  firm  of  Brezac. 

At  last  the  Auvergnat  grew  tired  of  roaming  from  fair  to 
fair  and  place  to  place,  and  settled  down  in  Limoges,  where, 
in  1797,  he  had  married  a  wife,  the  motherless  daughter  of  a 
tinman,  Champagnac  by  name.  When  the  father-in-law  died, 
he  bought  the  house  in  which  he  had,  in  a  manner,  localized 
his  trade  in  old  iron,  though  for  some  three  years  after  his 
marriage  he  had  still  made  his  rounds,  his  wife  accompanying 
him.  Sauviat  had  completed  his  fiftieth  year  when  he  married 
old  Champagnac's  daughter,  and  the  bride  herself  was  cer- 
tainly thirty  years  old  at  the  least.  Champagnac's  girl  was 
neither  pretty  nor  blooming.  She  was  born  in  Auvergne, 
and  the  dialect  was  a  mutual  attraction  ;  she  was,  moreover, 
of  the  heavy  build  which  enables  a  woman  to  stand  the 
roughest  work  ;  so  she  went  with  Sauviat  on  his  rounds,  car- 
ried loads  of  lead  and  iron  on  her  back,  and  drove  the  sorry 
carrier's  van  full  of  the  pottery  on  which  her  husband  made 
usurious  profits,  little  as  his  customers  imagined  it.  La  Cham- 
pagnac was  sunburned  and  high-colored.  She  enjoyed  rude 
health,  exhibiting  when  she  laughed  a  row  of  teeth  large  and 
white  as  blanched  almonds,  and,  as  to  physique,  possessed  the 
bust  and  hips  of  a  woman  destined  by  nature  to  be  a  mother. 
Her  prolonged  spinsterhood  was  entirely  due  to  her  father ; 
he  had  not  read  Moliere,  but  he  raised  Harpagon's  cry  of 
"Without  portion!"  scaring  suitors.  The  "  Sans  dot"  did 
not  frighten  Sauviat  away ;  he  was  not  averse  to  receiving  the 
bride  without  a  portion  ;  in  the  first  place,  a  would-be  bride- 
groom of  fifty  ought  not  to  raise  difficulties ;  and,  in  the  sec- 
ond, his  wife  saved  him  the  expense  of  a  servant.     He  added 


.  VER0N1QUK  5 

nothing  to  the  furniture  of  his  room.  On  his  wedding-day  it 
contained  a  four-post  bedstead  hung  with  green  serge  curtains 
and  a  valance  with  a  scalloped  edge  ;  a  dresser,  a  chest  of 
drawers,  four  easy-chairs,  a  table,  and  a  looking-glass,  all 
bought  at  different  times  and  from  different  places ;  and  till 
he  left  the  old  house  for  good,  the  list  remained  the  same. 
On  the  upper  shelves  of  the  dresser  stood  sundry  pewter  plates 
and  dishes,  no  two  of  them  alike.  After  this  description  of 
the  bedroom,  the  kitchen  may  be  left  to  the  reader's  imagina- 
tion. 

Neither  husband  nor  wife  could  read,  a  slight  defect  of 
education  which  did  not  prevent  them  from  reckoning  money 
to  admiration,  nor  from  carrying  on  one  of  the  most  pros- 
perous of  all  trades,  for  Sauviat  never  bought  anything  unless 
he  felt  sure  of  making  a  hundred  per  cent,  on  the  transaction, 
and  dispensed  with  bookkeeping  and  counting-house  by  carry- 
ing on  a  ready-money  business.  He  possessed,  moreover,  a 
faculty  of  memory  so  perfect  that  an  article  might  remain  for 
five  years  in  his  shop,  and  at  the  end  of  the  time  both  he  and 
his  wife  could  recollect  the  price  they  gave  for  it  to  a  farthing, 
together  with  the  added  interest  for  every  year  since  the  out- 
lay. 

Sauviat's  wife,  when  she  was  not  busy  about  the  house, 
always  sat  on  a  rickety  wooden  chair  in  her  shop-door  beside 
the  pillar,  knitting,  and  watching  the  passers-by,  keeping  an 
eye  on  the  old  iron,  and  selling,  weighing,  and  delivering  it 
herself  if  Sauviat  was  out  on  one  of  his  journeys.  At  day- 
break you  might  hear  the  dealer  in  old  iron  taking  down  the 
shutters,  the  dog  was  let  loose  into  the  street,  and  very  soon 
Sauviat's  wife  came  down  to  help  her  husband  to  arrange  their 
wares.  Against  the  low  wall  of  the  shop  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Cite  and  the  Rue  de  la  Vieille-Poste,  they  propped  their 
heterogeneous  collection  of  broken  gun-barrels,  cart  springs, 
and  harness  bells — all  the  gimcracks,  in  short,  which  served  as 
a  trade  sign  and  gave  a  sufficiently  poverty-stricken  look  to  a 


6  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

shop  which  in  reality  often  contained  twenty  thousand  francs 
worth  of  lead,  steel,  and  bell  metal.  The  retired  hawker  and 
his  wife  never  spoke  of  their  money  ;  they  hid  it  as  a  male- 
factor conceals  a  crime,  and  for  a  long  while  were  suspected 
of  clipping  gold  louis  and  silver  crowns. 

When  old  Champagnac  died,  the  Sauviats  made  no  inven- 
tory. They  searched  every  corner  and  cranny  of  the  old 
man's  house  with  the  quickness  of  rats,  stripped  it  bare  as  a 
corpse,  and  sold  the  tinware  themselves  in  their  own  shop. 
Once  every  year,  when  December  came  round,  Sauviat  would 
go  to  Paris,  traveling  in  a  public  conveyance ;  from  which 
premises,  observers  in  the  quarter  concluded  that  the  dealer  in 
old  iron  saw  to  his  investments  in  Paris  himself,  so  that  he 
might  keep  the  amount  of  his  money  a  secret.  It  came  out 
in  after  years  that  as  a  lad  Sauviat  had  known  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  metal  merchants  in  Paris,  a  fellow-countryman 
from  Auvergne,  and  that  Sauviat's  savings  were  invested  with 
the  prosperous  firm  of  Brezac,  the  corner-stone  of  the  famous 
association  of  the  Black  Band,  which  was  started,  as  has  been 
said,  by  Sauviat's  advice,  and  in  which  he  held  shares. 

Sauviat  was  short  and  stout.  He  had  a  weary-looking  face 
and  an  honest  expression,  which  attracted  customers,  and  was 
of  no  little  use  to  him  in  the  matter  of  sales.  The  dryness  of 
his  affirmations,  and  the  perfect  indifference  of  his  manner, 
aided  his  pretensions.  It  was  not  easy  to  guess  the  color  of 
the  skin  beneath  the  black  metallic  grime  which  covered  his 
curly  hair  and  countenance  seamed  with  the  smallpox.  His 
forehead  was  not  without  a  certain  nobility;  indeed,  he 
resembled  the  traditional  type  chosen  by  painters  for  Saint 
Peter,  the  man  of  the  people  among  the  apostles,  the  roughest 
among  their  number,  and  likewise  the  shrewdest ;  Sauviat  had 
the  hands  of  an  indefatigable  worker,  rifted  by  ineffaceable 
cracks,  square-shaped,  and  coarse  and  large.  The  muscular 
framework  of  his  chest  seemed  indestructible.  All  through 
his  life  he  dressed  like  a  hawker,  wearing  the  thick  iron-bound 


VEROMQUE.  7 

shoes,  the  blue  stockings  which  his  wife  knitted  for  him,  the 
leather  gaiters,  breeches  of  bottle-green  velveteen,  a  coat  with 
short  skirts  of  the  same  material,  and  a  flapped  waistcoat, 
where  the  copper  key  of  a  silver  watch  dangled  from  an  iron 
chain,  worn  by  constant  friction  till  it  shone  like  polished 
steel.  Round  his  neck  he  wore  a  cotton  handkerchief,  frayed 
by  the  constant  rubbing  of  his  beard.  On  Sundays  and  holi- 
days he  appeared  in  a  maroon  overcoat  so  carefully  kept  that 
he  bought  a  new  one  but  twice  in  a  score  of  years. 

As  for  their  manner  of  living,  the  convicts  in  the  hulks 
might  be  said  to  fare  sumptuously  in  comparison  ;  it  was  a 
day  of  high  festival  indeed  when  they  ate  meat.  Before  La 
Sauviat  could  bring  herself  to  part  with  the  money  needed 
for  their  daily  sustenance,  she  rummaged  through  the  two 
pockets  under  her  skirt,  and  never  drew  forth  coin  that 
was  not  clipped  or  light  weight,  eyeing  the  crowns  of  six  livres 
and  fifty-sous  pieces  dolorously  before  she  changed  one  of 
them.  The  Sauviats  contented  themselves,  for  the  most  part, 
with  herrings,  dried  peas,  cheese,  hard-boiled  eggs  and  salad, 
and  vegetables  dressed  in  the  cheapest  way.  They  lived  from 
hand  to  mouth,  laying  in  nothing  except  a  bundle  of  garlic  now 
and  again,  or  a  rope  of  onions,  which  could  not  spoil,  and 
cost  them  a  mere  trifle.  As  for  firewood,  La  Sauviat  bought 
the  few  sticks  which  they  required  in  winter  of  the  faggot- 
sellers  day  by  day.  By  seven  o'clock  in  winter  and  nine  in 
summer  the  shutters  were  fastened,  the  master  and  mistress  in 
bed,  and  their  huge  dog,  who  picked  up  his  living  in  the 
kitchens  of  the  quarter,  on  guard  in  the  shop  ;  Mother  Sau- 
viat did  not  spend  three  francs  a  year  on  candles. 

A  joy  came  into  their  sober  hard-working  lives ;  it  was  a 
joy  that  came  in  the  natural  order  of  things,  and  caused  the 
only  outlay  which  they  had  been  known  to  make.  In  May, 
1802,  La  Sauviat  bore  a  daughter.  No  one  was  called  in  to  her 
assistance,  and  five  days  later  she  was  stirring  about  her  house 
again.     She  nursed  her  child  herself,  sitting  on  the  chair  in 


8  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

the  doorway,  selling  her  wares  as  usual,  with  the  baby  at  her 
breast.  Her  milk  cost  nothing,  so  for  two  years  she  suckled 
the  little  one,  who  was  none  the  worse  for  it,  for  little  Vero- 
nique  grew  to  be  the  prettiest  child  in  the  lower  town,  so 
pretty  indeed  that  passers-by  would  stop  to  look  at  her.  The 
neighbors  saw  in  old  Sauviat  traces  of  a  tenderness  of  which 
they  had  believed  him  incapable.  While  the  wife  made  the 
dinner  ready  he  used  to  rock  the  little  one  in  his  arms,  croon- 
ing the  refrain  of  some  Auvergnat  song ;  and  the  workmen 
as  they  passed  sometimes  saw  him  sitting  motionless,  gazing 
at  little  Veronique  asleep  on  her  mother's  knee.  His  gruff 
voice  grew  gentle  for  the  child ;  he  would  wipe  his  hands  on 
his  trousers  before  taking  her  up.  When  Veronique  was  learn- 
ing to  walk,  her  father  squatted  on  his  heels  four  paces  away, 
holding  out  his  arms  to  her,  gleeful  smiles  puckering  the  deep 
wrinkles  on  the  harsh,  stern  face  of  bronze  ;  it  seemed  as  if 
the  man  of  iron,  brass,  and  lead  had  once  more  become  flesh 
and  blood.  As  he  stood  leaning  against  the  pillar  motionless 
as  a  statue,  he  would  start  at  a  cry  from  Veronique,  and  spring 
over  the  iron  to  find  her,  for  she  spent  her  childhood  in  play- 
ing about  among  the  metallic  spoils  of  old  chateaux  heaped 
up  in  the  recesses  of  the  shop,  and  never  hurt  herself;  and  if 
she  played  in  the  street  or  with  the  neighbors'  children,  she 
was  never  allowed  out  of  her  mother's  sight. 

It  is  worth  while  to  add  that  the  Sauviats  were  eminently 
devout.  Even  when  the  Revolution  was  at  its  height  Sauviat 
kept  Sundays  and  holidays  punctually.  Twice  in  those  days 
he  had  all  but  lost  his  head  for  going  to  hear  mas?  said  by  a 
priest  who  had  not  taken  the  oath  to  the  Republic.  He  found 
himself  in  prison  at  last,  justly  accused  of  conniving  at  the 
escape  of  a  bishop  whose  life  he  had  saved  ;  but  luckily  for 
the  hawker,  steel  files  and  iron  bars  were  old  acquaintances  of 
his,  and  he  made  his  escape.  Whereupon  the  court  finding 
that  he  failed  to  put  in  an  appearance,  gave  judgment  by 
default,  and  condemned  him  to  death ;  and  it  may  be  added 


VERONIQUE.  9 

that,  as  he  never  returned  to  clear  himself,  he  finally  died 
under  sentence  of  death.  In  his  religious  sentiments  his  wife 
shared ;  the  parsimonious  rule  of  the  household  was  only  re- 
laxed in  the  name  of  religion.  Punctually  the  two  paid  their 
quota  for  sacramental  bread,  and  gave  money  for  charity.  If 
the  curate  of  Saint-Etienne  came  to  ask  for  alms,  Sauviat  or 
his  wife  gave  without  fuss  or  hesitation  what  they  believed  to 
be  their  due  share  towards  the  funds  of  the  parish.  The 
broken  Virgin  on  their  pillar  was  decked  with  sprays  of  box 
when  Easter  came  round  ;  and  so  long  as  there  were  flowers, 
the  passers-by  saw  that  the  blue-glass  bouquet-holders  were 
never  empty,  and  this  especially  after  Veronique's  birth. 
Whenever  there  was  a  procession  the  Sauviats  never  failed  to 
drape  their  house  with  hangings  and  garlands,  and  contributed 
to  the  erection  and  adornment  of  the  altar — the  pride  of  their 
street. 

So  Veronique  was  brought  up  in  the  Christian  faith.  As 
soon  as  she  was  seven  years  old  she  was  educated  by  a  gray 
sister,  an  Auvergnate,  to  whom  the  Sauviats  had  rendered 
some  little  service  ;  for  both  of  them  were  sufficiently  obliging 
so  long  as  their  time  or  their  substance  was  not  in  question, 
and  helpful  after  the  manner  of  the  poor,  who  lend  themselves 
with  a  certain  heartiness.  It  was  the  Franciscan  sister  who 
taught  Veronique  to  read  and  write ;  she  instructed  her  pupil 
in  the  History  of  the  People  of  God,  in  the  Catechism  and 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and,  to  a  certain  small  extent, 
in  the  rules  of  arithmetic.  That  was  all.  The  good  sister 
thought  that  it  would  be  enough,  but  even  this  was  too  much. 

Veronique  at  nine  years  of  age  astonished  the  quarter  by 
her  beauty.  Every  one  admired  a  face  which  might  one  day 
be  worthy  of  the  pencil  of  some  impassioned  seeker  after  an 
ideal  type.  "The  little  Virgin,"  as  they  called  her,  gave 
promise  of  being  graceful  of  form  and  fair  of  face  ;  the  thick, 
bright  hair  which  set  off  the  delicate  outlines  of  her  features 
completed  her  resemblance  to  the  Madonna.    Those  who  have 


10  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

seen  the  divine  child-virgin  in  Titian's  great  picture  of  the 
Presentation  in  the  Temple  may  know  what  Veronique  was 
like  in  these  years;  she  had  the  same  frank  innocence  of  ex- 
pression, the  same  look  as  of  a  wondering  seraph  in  her  eyes, 
the  same  noble  simplicity,  the  same  queenly  bearing. 

Two  years  later,  Veronique  fell  ill  of  the  smallpox,  and 
would  have  died  of  it  but  for  Sister  Martha,  who  nursed  her. 
During  those  two  months,  while  her  life  was  in  danger,  the 
quarter  learned  how  tenderly  the  Sauviats  loved  their  daughter. 
Sauviat  attended  no  sales  and  went  nowhere.  All  day  long  he 
stayed  in  the  shop,  or  went  restlessly  up  and  down  the  stairs, 
and  he  and  his  wife  sat  up  night  after  night  with  the  child. 
So  deep  was  his  dumb  grief  that  no  one  dared  to  speak  to  him  ; 
the  neighbors  watched  him  pityingly,  and  asked  for  news  of 
Veronique  of  no  one  but  Sister  Martha.  The  days  came  when 
the  child's  life  hung  by  a  thread,  and  neighbors  and  passers- 
by  saw,  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  Sauviat's  life,  the  slow 
tears  rising  under  his  eyelids  and  rolling  down  his  hollow 
cheeks.  He  never  wiped  them  away.  For  hours  he  sat  like 
one  stupefied,  not  daring  to  go  upstairs  to  the  sick-room, 
staring  before  him  with  unseeing  eyes ;  he  might  have  been 
robbed,  and  he  would  not  have  noticed  it. 

Veronique's  life  was  saved,  not  so  her  beauty.  A  uniform 
tint,  in  which  red  and  brown  were  evenly  blended,  overspread 
her  face  ;  the  disease  left  countless  little  scars  which  coarsened 
the  surface  of  the  skin,  and  wrought  havoc  with  the  delicate 
underlying  tissues.  Nor  had  her  forehead  escaped  the  rav- 
ages of  the  scourge  ;  it  was  brown,  and  covered  with  dints 
like  the  marks  of  hammer-strokes.  No  combination  is  more 
discordant  than  a  muddy-brown  complexion  and  fair  hair  ; 
the  pre-established  harmony  of  coloring  is  broken.  Deep 
irregular  seams  in  the  surface  had  spoiled  the  purity  of  her 
features  and  the  delicacy  of  the  outlines  of  her  face  ;  the 
Grecian  profile,  the  subtle  curves  of  a  chin  finely  moulded  as 
white  porcelain,  were  scarcely  discernible  between  the  coars- 


V&RONIQUE.  11 

ened  skin  ;  the  disease  had  only  spared  what  it  was  powerless 
to  injure — the  teeth  and  eyes.  But  Veronique  did  not  lose 
her  grace  and  beauty  of  form,  the  full  rounded  curves  of  her 
figure,  nor  the  slenderness  of  her  waist.  At  fifteen  she  was  a 
graceful  girl,  and  (for  the  comfort  of  the  Sauviats)  a  good 
girl  and  devout,  hard-working,  industrious,  always  at  home. 

After  her  convalescence  and  first  communion,  her  father  and 
mother  arranged  for  her  the  two  rooms  on  the  third  floor. 
Some  glimmering  notion  of  what  is  meant  by  comfort  passed 
through  old  Sauviat's  mind ;  hard  fare  might  do  for  him  and 
his  wife,  but  now  a  dim  idea  of  making  compensation  for  a 
loss  which  his  daughter  had  not  felt  as  yet  crossed  his  brain. 
Veronique  had  lost  the  beauty  of  which  these  two  had  been 
so  proud,  and  thenceforward  became  the  dearer  to  them  and 
the  more  precious  in  their  eyes. 

So  one  day  Sauviat  came  in,  carrying  a  carpet,  a  chance 
purchase,  on  his  back,  and  this  he  himself  nailed  down  on 
the  floor  of  Veronique's  room.  He  went  to  a  sale  of  furni- 
ture at  a  chateau  and  secured  for  her  the  red  damask-curtained 
bed  of  some  great  lady,  and  hangings  and  chairs  and  easy- 
chairs  covered  with  the  same  stuff.  Gradually  he  furnished 
his  daughter's  rooms  with  second-hand  purchases,  in  complete 
ignorance  of  the  real  value  of  the  things.  He  set  pots  of 
mignonette  on  the  window-sill,  and  brought  back  flowers  for 
her  from  his  wanderings  ;  sometimes  it  was  a  rosebush,  some 
times  a  tree-carnation,  and  plants  of  all  kinds,  doubtless  given 
to  him  by  gardeners  and  innkeepers.  If  Veronique  had 
known  enough  of  other  people  to  draw  comparisons,  and  to 
understand  their  manners  of  life  and  the  characters  and  the 
ignorance  of  her  parents,  she  would  have  known  how  great 
the  affection  was  which  showed  itself  in  these  little  things ; 
but  the  girl  gave  her  father  and  mother  the  love  that  springs 
from  an  exquisite  nature — an  instinctive  and  unreasoning 
love. 

Veronique  must  have  the  finest  linen  which  her   mother 


12  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

could  buy,  and  La  Sauviat  allowed  her  daughter  to  choose  her 
own  dresses.  Both  father  and  mother  were  pleased  with  her 
moderation  ;  Veronique  had  no  ruinous  tastes.  A  blue-silk 
gown  for  holiday  wear,  a  winter  dress  of  coarse  merino  for 
working-days,  and  a  striped  cotton  gown  in  summer;  with 
these  she  was  content. 

On  Sunday  she  went  to  mass  with  her  father  and  mother, 
and  walked  with  them  after  vespers  along  the  banks  of  the 
Vienne  or  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  town.  All  through  the 
week  she  stayed  in  the  house,  busy  over  the  tapestry- work, 
which  was  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  or  the  plain  sewing 
for  the  hospital — no  life  could  be  more  simple,  more  innocent, 
more  exemplary  than  hers.  She  had  other  occupations  beside 
her  sewing ;  she  read  to  herself,  but  only  such  books  as  the 
curate  of  Saint-Etienne  loaned  to  her.  (Sister  Martha  had 
introduced  the  priest  to  the  Sauviat  family.) 

For  Veronique  all  the  laws  of  the  household  economy  were 
set  aside.  Her  mother  delighted  to  cook  dainty  fare  for  her, 
and  made  separate  dishes  for  her  daughter.  Father  and 
mother  might  continue,  as  before,  to  eat  the  walnuts  and  the 
hard  bread,  the  herrings,  and  the  dried  peas  fried  with  a  little 
salt  butter;  but  for  Veronique,  nothing  was  fresh  enough  nor 
good  enough. 

"Veronique  must  be  a  great  expense  to  you,"  remarked  the 
hatter  who  lived  opposite.  He  estimated  old  Sauviat's  fortune 
at  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  and  had  thoughts  of  Veronique 
for  his  son. 

"  Yes,  neighbor  ;  yes,  neighbor  ;  yes,"  old  Sauviat  answered, 
"  she  might  ask  me  for  ten  crowns,  and  I  should  let  her  have 
them,  I  should.  She  has  everything  she  wants,  but  she 
never  asks  for  anything.  She  is  as  good  and  gentle  as  a 
lamb!" 

And,  in  fact,  Veronique  did  not  know  the  price  of  any- 
thing ;  she  had  no  wants ;  she  never  saw  a  piece  of  gold  till 
the  day  of  her  marriage,  and  had  no  money  of  her  own  ;  her 


VERONIQUE.  18 

mother  bought  and  gave  to  her  all  that  she  wished,  and  even 
for  a  beggar  she  drew  upon  her  mother's  pockets. 

"Then  she  doesn't  cost  you  much,"  commented  the  hatter. 

"  That  is  what  you  think,  is  it  ?  "  retorted  Sauviat.  '•  You 
wouldn't  do  it  on  less  than  forty  crowns  a  year.  You  should 
see  her  room  !  There  is  a  hundred  crowns'  worth  of  furniture 
in  it ;  but  when  you  have  only  one  girl,  you  can  indulge  your- 
self; and,  after  all,  what  little  we  have  will  all  be  hers  some 
day." 

"Little  ?  You  must  be  rich,  Father  Sauviat.  These  forty 
years  you  have  been  in  a  line  of  business  where  there  are  no 
losses.' ' 

"  Oh,  they  shouldn't  cut  my  ears  off  for  a  matter  of  twelve 
hundred  francs,"  said  the  dealer  in  old  iron. 

From  the  day  when  Veronique  lost  the  delicate  beauty 
which  every  one  had  admired  in  her  childish  face,  old  Sauviat 
had  worked  twice  as  hard  as  before.  His  business  revived 
again,  and  prospered  so  well,  that  he  went  to  Paris  not  once, 
but  several  times  a  year.  People  guessed  his  motives.  If  his 
girl  had  gone  off  in  looks,  he  would  make  up  for  it  in  money, 
to  use  his  own  language. 

When  Veronique  was  about  fifteen  another  change  was 
wrought  in  the  household  ways.  The  father  and  mother  went 
up  to  their  daughter's  room  of  an  evening,  and  listened  while 
she  read  aloud  to  them  from  the  "Lives  of  the  Saints,"  or 
the  "  Lettres  edifiantes,"  or  from  some  other  book  loaned  by 
the  curate  of  Saint-Etienne.  The  lamp  was  set  behind  a 
glass  globe  full  of  water,  and  Mother  Sauviat  knitted  indus- 
triously, thinking  in  this  way  to  pay  for  the  oil.  The  neigh- 
bors opposite  could  look  into  the  room  and  see  the  two  old 
people  sitting  there,  motionless  as  two  carved  Chinese  figures, 
listening  intently,  admiring  their  daughter  with  all  the  power 
of  an  intelligence  that  was  dim  enough  save  in  matters  of  busi- 
ness or  religion.  Doubtless  there  have  been  girls  as  pure  as 
Veronique — there  have  been  none  purer  nor  more  modest 


14  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Her  confession  surely  filled  the  angels  with  wonder,  and  glad- 
dened the  Virgin  in  heaven.  She  was  now  sixteen  years  old, 
and  perfectly  developed ;  you  beheld  in  her  the  woman  she 
would  be.  She  was  a  medium  height,  neither  the  father  nor 
the  mother  was  tall ;  but  the  most  striking  thing  about  her 
figure  was  its  lissome  grace,  the  sinuous,  gracious  curves  which 
nature  herself  traces  so  finely,  which  the  artist  strives  so  pain- 
fully to  render;  the  soft  contours  that  reveal  themselves  to 
practiced  eyes,  for  in  spite  of  folds  of  linen  and  thickness  of 
stuff,  the  dress  is  always  moulded  and  informed  by  the  body. 
Simple,  natural  and  sincere,  Veronique  set  this  physical  beauty 
in  relief  by  her  unaffected  freedom  of  movement.  She  pro- 
duced her  "  full  and  entire  effect,"  if  it  is  permissible  to  make 
use  of  the  forcible  legal  phrase.  She  had  the  full-fleshed  arms 
of  an  Auvergnate,  the  red,  plump  hands  of  a  buxom  inn- 
servant,  and  feet  strongly  made,  but  shapely,  and  in  propor- 
tion to  her  height. 

Sometimes  there  was  wrought  in  her  an  exquisite  mysterious 
change ;  suddenly  it  was  revealed  that  in  this  frame  dwelt  a 
woman  hidden  from  all  eyes  but  Love's.  Perhaps  it  was  this 
transfiguration  which  awakened  an  admiration  of  her  beauty 
in  the  father  and  mother,  who  astonished  the  neighbors  by 
speaking  of  it  as  something  divine.  The  first  to  see  it  were 
the  clergy  of  the  cathedral  and  the  communicants  at  the 
table  of  the  Lord.  When  Veronique's  face  was  lighted  up  by 
impassioned  feeling — and  the  mystical  ecstasy  which  filled  her 
at  such  times  is  one  of  the  strongest  emotions  in  the  life  of 
so  innocent  a  girl — it  seemed  as  if  a  bright  inner  radiance 
effaced  the  traces  of  the  smallpox,  and  the  pure,  bright  face 
appeared  once  more  in  the  first  beauty  of  childhood.  Scarcely 
obscured  by  the  thin  veil  of  tissues  coarsened  by  the  dis- 
ease, her  face  shone  like  some  flower  in  dim  places  under  the 
sea,  when  the  sunlight  strikes  down  and  invests  it  with  a 
mysterious  glory.  For  a  few  brief  moments  Veronique  was 
transfigured,  the  little  Virgin  appeared  and  disappeared  like 


VERONIQUE.  lo 

a  vision  from  heaven.  The  pupils  of  her  eyes,  which  pos- 
sessed in  a  high  degree  the  power  of  contracting,  seemed  at 
such  seasons  to  dilate  and  overspread  the  blue  of  the  iris, 
which  diminished  till  it  became  nothing  more  than  a  slender 
ring  ;  the  change  in  the  eyes,  which  thus  grew  piercing  as  the 
eagle's,  completing  the  wonderful  change  in  the  face.  Was  it 
a  storm  of  repressed  and  passionate  longing,  was  it  some 
power  which  had  its  source  in  the  depths  of  her  nature,  which 
made  those  eyes  dilate  in  broad  daylight  as  other  eyes  widen 
in  shadow,  darkening  their  heavenly  blue  ?  Whatever  the 
cause,  it  was  impossible  to  look  upon  Veronique  with  indiffer- 
ence as  she  returned  to  her  place  after  having  been  made  one 
with  God  ;  all  present  beheld  her  in  the  radiance  of  her  early 
beauty ;  at  such  times  she  would  have  eclipsed  the  fairest 
woman  in  her  loveliness.  What  a  charm  for  a  jealous  lover  in 
that  veil  of  flesh  which  should  hide  his  love  from  all  other 
eyes ;  a  veil  which  the  hand  of  love  could  raise  to  let  fall 
again  upon  the  rapture  of  wedded  bliss.  Veronique's  lips, 
faultless  in  their  curves,  seemed  to  have  been  painted  scarlet, 
so  richly  were  they  colored  by  the  pure  glow  of  the  blood. 
Her  chin  and  the  lower  part  of  her  face  were  a  little  full,  in 
the  sense  that  painters  give  to  the  word,  and  this  heaviness 
of  contour  is,  by  the  unalterable  laws  of  physiognomy,  a  cer- 
tain sign  of  a  capacity  for  almost  morbid  violence  of  passion. 
Her  finely-moulded  but  almost  imperious  brow  was  crowned 
by  a  glorious  diadem  of  thick  abundant  hair;  the  gold  had 
deepened  to  a  chestnut  tint. 

From  her  sixteenth  year  till  the  day  of  her  marriage 
Veronique's  demeanor  was  thoughtful  and  full  of  melancholy. 
In  an  existence  so  lonely  she  fell,  as  solitary  souls  are  wont, 
to  watching  the  grand  spectacle  of  the  life  within,  the  pro- 
gress of  her  thoughts,  the  ever-changing  phantasmagoria  of 
mental  visions,  the  yearnings  kindled  by  her  pure  life.  Those 
who  passed  along  the  Rue  de  la  Cite  on  sunny  days  had  only 
to  look  up  to  see  the  Sauviats'  girl  sitting  at  her  window  with 


16  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

a  bit  of  sewing  or  embroidery  in  her  hand,  drawing  the 
needle  in  and  out  with  a  somewhat  dreamy  air.  Her  head 
stood  out  in  sharp  contrast  against  its  background  among  the 
flowers  which  gave  a  touch  of  poetry  to  the  prosaic,  cracked, 
brown  window-sill,  and  the  small  leaded  panes  of  her  case- 
ment. At  times  a  reflected  glow  from  the  red  damask  cur- 
tains added  to  the  effect  of  the  face  so  brightly  colored 
already  ;  it  looked  like  some  rosy-red  flower  above  the  little 
skyey  garden,  which  she  tended  so  carefully  upon  the  ledge. 
So  the  quaint  old  house  contained  something  still  more 
quaint — a  portrait  of  a  young  girl,  worthy  of  Mieris,  Van 
Ostade,  Terburg,  or  Gerard  Dow,  framed  in  one  of  the  old, 
worn,  and  blackened,  and  almost  ruinous  windows  which 
Dutch  artists  loved  to  paint.  If  a  stranger  happened  to 
glance  up  at  the  second  floor,  and  stand  agape  with  wonder  at 
its  construction,  old  Sauviat  below  would  thrust  out  his  head 
till  he  could  look  up  the  face  of  the  overhanging  story.  He 
was  sure  to  see  Veronique  there  at  the  window.  Then  he 
would  go  in  again,  rubbing  his  hands,  and  say  to  his  wife  in 
the  patois  of  Auvergne  : 

"  Hullo,  old  woman,  there  is  some  one  admiring  your 
daughter !  " 

In  1820  an  event  occurred  in  Veronique's  simple  and  un- 
eventful life.  It  was  a  little  thing,  which  would  have  exer- 
cised no  influence  upon  another  girl,  but  destined  to  effect  a 
fatal  influence  on  Veronique's  future  life.  On  the  day  of  a  sup- 
pressed church  festival,  a  working-day  for  the  rest  of  the  town, 
the  Sauviats  shut  their  shop  and  went  first  to  mass  and  then 
for  a  walk.  On  their  way  into  the  country  they  passed  by 
a  bookseller's  shop,  and  among  the  books  displayed  outside 
Veronique  saw  one  called  Paul  et  Virginie.  The  fancy  took 
her  to  buy  it  for  the  sake  of  the  engraving  ;  her  father  paid 
five  francs  for  the  fatal  volume,  and  slipped  it  into  the  vast 
pocket  of  his  overcoat. 

"Wouldn't  it  be  better  to  show  it  to  M.  le  Vicaire?" 


VERONIQUE.  17 

asked  the  mother ;  for  her  any  printed  book  was  something 
of  an  abracadabra,  which  might  or  might  not  be  for  evil. 

"Yes,  I  thought  I  would,"  Veronique  answered  simply. 

She  spent  that  night  in  reading  the  book,  one  of  the  most 
touching  romances  in  the  French  language.  The  love  scenes, 
half-biblical,  and  worthy  of  the  early  ages  of  the  world, 
wrought  havoc  in  Veronique's  heart.  A  hand,  whether  dia- 
bolical or  divine,  had  raised  for  her  the  veil  which  hitherto 
had  covered  nature.  On  the  morrow  the  little  Virgin  within 
the  beautiful  girl  thought  her  flowers  fairer  than  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  day  before  ;  she  understood  their  symbolical  lan- 
guage, she  gazed  up  at  the  blue  sky  with  exaltation,  causeless 
tears  rose  to  her  eyes. 

In  every  woman's  life  there  comes  a  moment  when  she 
understands  her  destiny,  or  her  organization,  hitherto  mute, 
speaks  with  authority.  It  is  not  always  a  man  singled  out  by 
an  involuntary  and  stolen  glance  who  reveals  the  possession 
of  a  sixth  sense,  hitherto  dormant ;  more  frequently  it  is  some 
sight  that  comes  with  the  force  of  a  surprise,  a  landscape,  a 
page  of  a  book,  some  day  of  high  pomp,  some  ceremony  of 
the  Church  ;  the  scent  of  growing  flowers,  the  delicate  bright- 
ness of  a  misty  morning,  the  intimate  sweetness  of  divine 
music — and  something  suddenly  stirs  in  body  or  soul.  For 
the  lonely  child,  a  prisoner  in  the  dark  house,  brought  up  by 
parents  almost  as  rough  and  simple  as  peasants  ;  for  the  girl 
who  had  never  heard  an  improper  word,  whose  innocent  mind 
had  never  received  the  slightest  taint  of  evil ;  for  the  angelic 
pupil  of  Sister  Martha  and  of  the  good  curate  of  Saint-Etienne, 
the  revelation  of  love  came  through  a  charming  book  from  the 
hand  of  genius.  No  peril  would  have  lurked  in  it  for  any 
other,  but  for  her  an  obscene  work  would  have  been  less  dan- 
gerous. Corruption  is  relative.  There  are  lofty  and  virginal 
natures  which  a  single  thought  suffices  to  corrupt,  a  thought 
which  works  the  more  ruin  because  the  necessity  of  combating 
it  is  not  foreseen. 
2 


18  THE    COUNTRY  PARSON. 

The  next  day  Veronique  showed  her  book  to  the  good 
priest,  who  approved  the  purchase  of  a  work  so  widely  known 
for  its  childlike  innocence  and  purity.  But  the  heat  of  the 
tropics,  the  beauty  of  the  land  described  in  Paul  et  Virginie, 
the  almost  childish  innocence  of  a  love  scarcely  of  this  earth, 
had  wrought  upon  Veronique's  imagination.  She  was  capti- 
vated by  the  noble  and  sweet  personality  of  the  author,  and 
carried  away  towards  the  cult  of  the  ideal,  that  fatal  religion. 
She  dreamed  of  a  lover,  a  young  man  like  Paul,  and  brooded 
over  soft  imaginings  of  that  life  of  lovers  in  some  fragrant 
island.  Below  Limoges,  and  almost  opposite  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Martial,  there  is  a  little  island  in  the  Vienne;  this,  in 
her  childish  fancy,  Veronique  called  the  Isle  of  France,  and, 
filled  with  the  fantastic  creations  of  a  young  girl's  dreams, 
vague  shadows  endowed  with  the  dreamer's  own  perfections. 

She  sat  more  than  ever  in  the  window  in  those  days,  and 
watched  the  workmen  as  they  came  and  went.  Her  parents' 
humble  position  forbade  her  to  think  of  any  one  but  an  arti- 
san ;  yet,  accustomed  as  she  doubtless  was  to  the  idea  of 
becoming  a  workingman's  wife,  she  was  conscious  of  an  in- 
stinctive refinement  which  shrank  from  anything  rough  or 
coarse.  So  she  began  to  weave  for  herself  a  romance  such  as 
most  girls  weave  in  their  secret  hearts  for  themselves  alone. 
With  the  enthusiasm  which  might  be  expected  of  a  refined 
and  girlish  imagination,  she  seized  on  the  attractive  idea  of 
ennobling  one  of  these  workingmen,  of  raising  him  to  the 
level  of  her  dreams.  She  made  (who  knows  ?)  a  Paul  of  some 
young  man  whose  face  she  saw  in  the  street,  simply  that  she 
might  attach  her  wild  fancies  to  some  human  creature,  as  the 
overcharged  atmosphere  of  a  winter  day  deposits  dew  on  the 
branches  of  a  tree  by  the  wayside,  for  the  frost  to  transform 
into  magical  crystals.  How  should  she  escape  a  fall  into  the 
depths?  for  if  she  often  seemed  to  return  to  earth  from  far-off 
heights  with  a  reflected  glory  about  her  brows,  yet  oftener  she 
appeared  to  bring  with  her  flowers  gathered  on  the  brink  of  a 


V&RONIQUE.  19 

torrent-stream  which  she  had  followed  down  into  the  abyss. 
On  warm  evenings  she  asked  her  old  father  to  walk  out  with 
her,  and  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  a  stroll  by  the  Vienne. 
She  went  into  ecstasy  at  every  step  over  the  beauty  of  the  sky 
and  land,  over  the  red  glories  of  the  sunset,  or  the  joyous 
freshness  of  dewy  mornings,  and  the  sense  of  these  things,  the 
poetry  of  nature,  passed  into  her  soul. 

She  curled  and  waved  the  hair  which  she  used  to  wear  in 
simple  plaits  about  her  head  ;  she  thought  more  about  her 
dress.  The  young,  wild  vine  which  had  grown  as  its  nature 
prompted  about  the  old  elm  tree  was  transplanted  and  trimmed 
and  pruned,  and  grew  upon  a  dainty  green  trellis. 

One  evening  in  December,  1822,  when  Sauviat  (now  seventy 
years  old)  had  returned  from  a  journey  to  Paris,  the  curate 
dropped  in,  and  after  a  few  commonplaces — 

"You  must  think  of  marrying  your  daughter,  Sauviat," 
said  the  priest.  "At  your  age  you  should  no  longer  delay 
the  fulfillment  of  an  important  duty." 

"  Why,  has  Veronique  a  mind  to  be  married  ?"  asked  the 
amazed  old  man. 

"As  you  please,  father,"  the  girl  answered,  lowering  her 
eyes. 

"  We  will  marry  her,"  cried  portly  Mother  Sauviat,  smiling 
as  she  spoke. 

"Why  didn't  you  say  something  about  this  before  I  left 
home,  mother?  "  Sauviat  asked.  "  I  shall  have  to  go  back  to 
Paris  again." 

In  Jerome-Baptiste  Sauviat's  eyes  plenty  of  money  appeared 
to  be  synonymous  with  happiness.  He  had  always  regarded 
love  and  marriage  in  their  purely  physical  and  practical  as- 
pects ;  marriage  was  a  means  of  transmitting  his  property 
(he  being  no  more)  to  another  self;  so  he  vowed  that  Veron- 
ique  should  marry  a  well-to-do  man.  Indeed,  for  a  long  while 
past  this  had  become  a  fixed  idea  with  him.  His  neighbor 
the  hatter,  who  was  retiring  from  business,  and  had  an  income 


20  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

of  two  thousand  livres  a  year,  had  already  asked  for  Veronique 
for  his  son  and  successor  (for  Veronique  was  spoken  of  in  the 
quarter  as  a  good  girl  of  exemplary  life),  and  had  been  politely 
refused.  Sauviat  had  not  so  much  as  mentioned  this  to  Ver- 
onique. 

The  curate  was  Veronique's  director,  and  a  great  man  in 
the  Sauviats'  eyes ;  so  the  day  after  he  had  spoken  of  Veron- 
ique's marriage  as  a  necessity,  old  Sauviat  shaved  himself,  put 
on  his  Sunday  clothes,  and  went  out.  He  said  not  a  word  to 
his  wife  and  daughter,  but  the  women  knew  that  the  old  man 
had  gone  out  to  find  a  son-in-law.    Sauviat  went  to  M.  Graslin. 

M.  Graslin,  a  rich  banker  of  Limoges,  had  left  his  native 
Auvergne,  like  Sauviat  himself,  without  a  sou  in  his  pocket. 
He  had  begun  life  as  a  porter  in  a  banker's  service,  and  from 
that  position  had  made  his  way,  like  many  another  capitalist, 
partly  by  thrift,  partly  by  sheer  luck.  A  cashier  at  five-and- 
twenty,  and  at  five-and  thirty  a  partner  in  the  firm  of  Perret 
&  Grossetete,  he  at  last  bought  out  the  original  partners,  and 
became  sole  owner  of  the  bank.  His  two  colleagues  went  to 
live  in  the  country,  leaving  their  capital  in  his  hands  at  a  low 
rate  of  interest.  Pierre  Graslin,  at  the  age  of  forty-seven, 
was  believed  to  possess  six  hundred  thousand  francs  at  the 
least.  His  reputation  for  riches  had  recently  increased,  and 
the  whole  department  had  applauded  his  free-handedness 
when  he  built  a  house  for  himself  in  the  new  quarter  of  the 
Place  des  Arbres,  which  adds  not  a  little  to  the  appearance 
of  Limoges.  It  was  a  handsome  house,  on  the  plan  of  align- 
ment, with  a  facade  like  a  neighboring  public  building;  but 
though  the  mansion  had  been  finished  for  six  months,  Pierre 
Graslin  hesitated  to  furnish  it.  His  house  had  cost  him  so 
dear,  that  at  the  thought  of  living  in  it  he  drew  back.  Self- 
love,  it  may  be,  had  enticed  him  to  exceed  the  limits  he  had 
prudently  observed  all  his  life  long ;  he  thought,  moreover, 
with  the  plain  sense  of  a  man  of  business,  that  it  was  only 
right  that   the  inside  of  his  house  should  be  in  keeping  with 


V&RONIQUE.  21 

the  programme  adopted  with  the  facade.  The  plate  and  fur- 
niture and  accessories  needed  for  the  housekeeping  in  such  a 
mansion  would  cost  more,  according  to  his  computations, 
than  the  actual  outlay  on  the  building.  So,  in  spite  of  the 
town  gossip,  the  broad  grins  of  commercial  circles,  and  the 
charitable  surmises  of  his  neighbors,  Pierre  Graslin  stayed 
where  he  was  on  the  damp  and  dirty  ground-floor  dwelling  in 
the  Rue  Montantmanigne,  where  his  fortune  had  been  made, 
and  the  great  house  stood  empty.  People  might  talk,  but 
Graslin  was  happy  in  the  approbation  of  his  two  old  sleeping 
partners,  who  praised  him  for  displaying  such  uncommon 
strength  of  mind. 

Such  a  fortune  and  such  a  life  as  Graslin's  is  sure  to  excite 
plentiful  covetousness  in  a  country  town.  During  the  past 
ten  years  more  than  one  proposition  of  marriage  had  been 
skillfully  insinuated.  But  the  estate  of  a  bachelor  was  emi- 
nently suited  to  a  man  who  worked  from  morning  to  night, 
overwhelmed  with  business,  and  wearied  by  his  daily  round,  a 
man  as  keen  after  money  as  a  sportsman  after  game  ;  so  Graslin 
had  fallen  into  none  of  the  snares  set  for  him  by  ambitious 
mothers  who  coveted  a  brilliant  position  for  their  daughters. 
Graslin,  the  Sauviat  of  a  somewhat  higher  social  sphere,  did 
not  spend  two  francs  a  day  upon  himself,  and  dressed  no 
better  than  his  second  clerk.  His  whole  staff  consisted  of  a 
couple  of  clerks  and  an  office  boy,  though  he  went  through 
an  amount  of  business  which  might  fairly  be  called  immense, 
so  multitudinous  were  its  ramifications.  One  of  the  clerks 
saw  to  the  correspondence,  the  other  kept  the  books;  and 
for  the  rest  Pierre  Graslin  was  both  the  soul  and  body  of  his 
business.  He  chose  his  clerks  from  his  family  circle ;  they 
were  of  his  own  stamp,  trustworthy,  intelligent,  and  accus- 
tomed to  work.  As  for  the  office  boy,  he  led  the  life  of  a 
dray  horse. 

Graslin  rose  all  the  year  round  before  five  in  the  morning, 
and  wa:  never  in  bed  till  eleven  o'clock  at  night.     His  char- 

O 


22  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

woman,  an  old  Auvergnate,  who  came  in  to  do  the  housework 
and  to  cook  his  meals,  had  strict  orders  never  to  exceed  the 
sum  of  three  francs  for  the  total  daily  expense  of  the  house- 
hold. The  brown  earthenware,  the  strong  coarse  tablecloths 
and  sheets,  were  in  keeping  with  the  manners  and  customs  of 
an  establishment  in  which  the  porter  was  the  man  of  all  work, 
and  the  clerks  made  their  own  beds.  The  blackened  deal 
tables,  the  ragged  straw-bottomed  chairs  with  the  holes 
through  the  centre,  the  pigeon-hole  writing-desks  and  ram- 
shackle bedsteads,  in  fact,  all  the  furniture  of  the  counting- 
house  and  the  three  rooms  above  it,  would  not  have  brought 
three  thousand  francs,  even  if  the  safe  had  been  included,  a 
colossal  solid  iron  structure  built  into  the  wall  itself,  before 
which  the  porter  nightly  slept  with  a  couple  of  dogs  at  his 
feet.  It  had  been  a  legacy  from  the  old  firm  to  the  present 
one. 

Graslin  was  not  often  seen  in  society,  where  a  great  deal 
was  heard  about  him.  He  dined  with  the  receiver-general 
(a  business  connection)  two  or  three  times  a  year,  and  he  had 
been  known  to  take  a  meal  at  the  prefecture ;  for,  to  his  own 
intense  disgust,  he  had  been  nominated  a  member  of  the 
general  council  of  the  department.  "  He  wasted  his  time 
there,"  he  said.  Occasionally,  when  he  had  concluded  a 
bargain  with  a  business  acquaintance,  he  was  detained  to  lunch 
or  dinner;  and,  lastly,  he  was  sometimes  compelled  to  call 
upon  his  old  partners,  who  spent  the  winter  in  Limoges.  So 
slight  was  the  hold  which  social  relations  had  upon  him  that 
at  twenty-five  years  of  age  Graslin  had  not  so  much  as  offered 
a  glass  of  water  to  any  creature. 

People  used  to  say,  "  That  is  M.  Graslin  !  "  when  he  passed 
along  the  street,  which  is  to  say,  "  There  is  a  man  who  came 
to  Limoges  without  a  farthing,  and  has  made  an  immense 
amount  of  money."  The  Auvergnat  banker  became  a  kind 
of  pattern  and  example  held  up  by  fathers  of  families  to  their 
offspring — and  an  epigram  which  more  than  one  wife  cast  in 


VERONIQUE.  23 

her  husband's  teeth.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  motives  which 
induced  this  principal  pivot  in  the  financial  machinery  of 
Limoges  to  repel  the  matrimonial  advances  so  perseveringly 
made  to  him.  The  daughters  of  Messieurs  Perret  and  Gros* 
setete  had  been  married  before  Graslin  was  in  a  position  to 
ask  for  them  ;  but  as  each  of  these  ladies  had  daughters  in 
the  school-room,  people  let  Graslin  alone  at  last,  taking  it  for 
granted  that  either  old  Perret  or  Grossetete  the  shrewd  had 
arranged  a  match  to  be  carried  out  some  future  day,  when 
Graslin  should  be  bridegroom  to  one  of  the  granddaughters. 

Sauviat  had  watched  his  fellow-countryman's  rise  and  prog- 
ress more  closely  than  any  one.  He  had  known  Graslin  ever 
since  he  came  to  Limoges,  but  their  relative  positions  had 
changed  so  much  (in  appearance  at  any  rate)  that  the  friend- 
ship became  an  acquaintance,  renewed  only  at  long  intervals. 
Still,  in  his  quality  of  fellow-countryman,  Graslin  was  never 
above  having  a  chat  with  Sauviat  in  the  Auvergne  dialect  if 
the  two  happened  to  meet,  and  in  their  own  language  they 
dropped  the  formal  "  you  "  for  the  more  familiar  "  thee  " 
and  "  thou." 

In  1823,  when  the  youngest  of  the  brothers  Grossetete,  the 
Receiver-General  of  Bourges,  married  his  daughter  to  the 
youngest  son  of  the  Comte  de  Fontaine,  Sauviat  saw  that  the 
Grossetetes  had  no  mind  to  take  Graslin  into  their  family. 

After  a  conference  with  the  banker,  old  Sauviat  returned  in 
high  glee  to  dine  in  his  daughter's  room. 

"  Veronique  will  be  Madame  Graslin,"  he  told  the  two 
women. 

"  Madame  Graslin  !  "  cried  Mother  Sauviat,  in  amazement. 

"Is  it  possible?"  asked  Veronique.  She  did  not  know 
Graslin  by  sight,  but  the  name  produced  much  such  an  effect 
on  her  imagination  as  the  word  Rothschild  upon  a  Parisian 
shop-girl. 

"Yes.  It  is  settled,"  old  Sauviat  continued  solemnly. 
"  Graslin  will  furnish  his  house  very  grandly ;  he  will  have  the 


24  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

finest  carriage  from  Paris  that  money  can  buy  for  our  daughter, 
and  the  best  pair  of  horses  in  Limousin.  He  will  buy  an 
estate  worth  five  hundred  thousand  francs  for  her,  and  settle 
the  house  on  her  besides.  In  short,  Veronique  will  be  the  first 
lady  in  Limoges,  and  the  richest  in  the  department,  and  can 
do  just  as  she  likes  with  Graslin." 

Veronique's  boundless  affection  for  her  father  and  mother, 
her  bringing-up,  her  religious  training,  her  utter  ignorance, 
prevented  her  from  raising  a  single  objection ;  it  did  not  so 
much  as  occur  to  her  that  she  had  been  disposed  of  without 
her  own  consent.  The  next  day  Sauviat  set  out  for  Paris,  and 
was  away  for  about  a  week. 

Pierre  Graslin,  as  you  may  imagine,  was  no  great  talker;  he 
went  straight  to  the  point,  and  acted  promptly.  A  thing 
determined  upon  was  a  thing  done  at  once.  So  in  February, 
1822,  a  strange  piece  of  news  surprised  Limoges  like  a  sudden 
thunderclap.  Graslin's  great  house  was  being  handsomely 
furnished.  Heavy  wagon-loads  from  Paris  arrived  daily  to  be 
unpacked  in  the  courtyard.  Rumors  flew  about  the  town 
concerning  the  good  taste  displayed  in  the  beautiful  furniture, 
modern  and  antique.  A  magnificent  service  of  plate  came 
down  from  Odiot's  by  the  mail ;  and  (actually)  three  car- 
riages ! — a  caleche,  a  brougham,  and  a  cabriolet — arrived  care- 
fully packed  in  straw  as  if  they  had  been  jewels. 

"  M.  Graslin  is  going  to  be  married  !  "  The  words  passed 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  in  the  course  of  a  single  evening 
the  news  filtered  through  the  drawing-rooms  of  the  Limousin 
aristocracy  to  the  back  parlors  and  shops  in  the  suburbs,  till 
all  Limoges,  in  fact,  had  heard  it.  But  whom  was  he  going  to 
marry  ?  Nobody  could  answer  the  question.  There  was  a 
mystery  in  Limoges. 

As  soon  as  Sauviat  came  back  from  Paris,  Graslin  made  his 
first  nocturnal  visit,  at  half- past  nine  o'clock.  Veronique 
knew  that  he  was  coming.  She  wore  her  blue-silk  gown,  cut 
square  at  the  throat,  and  a  wide  collar  of  cambric  with  a 


VERONIQUE.  25 

deep  hem.  Her  hair  she  had  simply  parted  into  two  bandeaux, 
waved  and  gathered  into  a  Grecian  knot  at  the  back  of  her 
head.  She  was  sitting  in  a  tapestry-covered  chair  near  the  fire- 
side, where  her  mother  occupied  a  great  armchair  with  a 
carved  back  and  crimson  velvet  cushions,  a  bit  of  salvage 
from  some  ruined  chateau.  A  blazing  fire  burned  on  the 
hearth.  Upon  the  mantel-shelf,  on  either  side  of  an  old 
clock  (whose  value  the  Sauviats  certainly  did  not  know), 
stood  two  old-fashioned  sconces ;  six  wax-candles  in  the 
sockets  among  the  brazen  vine-stems  shed  their  light  on  the 
brown  chamber,  and  on  Veronique  in  her  bloom.  The  old 
mother  had  put  on  her  best  dress. 

In  the  midst  of  the  silence  that  reigned  in  the  streets  at 
that  silent  hour,  with  the  dimly-lit  staircase  as  a  background, 
Graslin  appeared  for  the  first  time  before  Veronique — the  shy 
childish  girl  whose  head  was  still  full  of  sweet  fancies  of  love 
derived  from  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre's  book.  Graslin  was 
short  and  thin.  His  thick  black  hair  stood  up  straight  on  his 
forehead  like  bristles  in  a  brush,  in  startling  contrast  with  a 
face  red  as  a  drunkard's,  and  covered  with  suppurating  or 
bleeding  pustules.  The  eruption  was  neither  scrofula  nor 
leprosy,  it  was  simply  a  result  of  an  overheated  condition  of 
the  blood;  unflagging  toil,  anxiety,  fanatical  application  to 
business,  late  hours,  a  life  steady  and  sober  to  the  point  of 
abstemiousness,  had  induced  a  complaint  which  seemed  to  be 
related  to  both  diseases.  In  spite  of  partners,  clerks,  and 
doctors,  the  banker  had  never  brought  himself  to  submit  to  a 
regimen  which  might  have  alleviated  the  symptoms  or  cured 
an  evil,  trifling  at  first,  which  was  daily  aggravated  by  neglect 
as  time  went  on.  He  wished  to  be  rid  of  it,  and  sometimes 
for  a  few  days  would  take  the  baths  and  swallow  the  doses 
prescribed  ;  but  the  round  of  business  carried  him  away,  and 
he  forgot  to  take  care  of  himself.  Now  and  again  he  would 
talk  of  going  away  for  a  short  holiday,  and  trying  the  waters 
somewhere  or  other  for  a  cure,  but  where  is  the  man  in  hot 


26  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

pursuit  of  millions  who  has  been  known  to  stop?  In  this 
flushed  countenance  gleamed  two  gray  eyes,  the  iris  speckled 
with  brown  dots  and  streaked  with  fine  green  threads  radi- 
ating from  the  pupil — two  covetous  eyes,  piercing  eyes  that 
went  to  the  depths  of  the  heart,  implacable  eyes  in  which 
you  read  resolution  and  integrity  and  business  faculty.  A 
snub  nose,  thick  blubber  lips,  a  prominent  rounded  forehead, 
grinning  cheek-bones,  coarse  ears  corroded  by  the  sour  humors 
of  the  blood — altogether  Graslin  looked  like  an  antique  satyr 
— a  satyr  tricked  out  in  a  great  coat,  a  black  satin  waistcoat, 
and  a  white  neckcloth  knotted  about  his  neck.  The  strong 
muscular  shoulders,  which  had  once  carried  heavy  burdens, 
stooped  somewhat  already ;  the  thin  legs,  which  seemed  to  be 
imperfectly  jointed  with  the  short  thighs,  trembled  beneath 
the  weight  of  that  over-developed  torso.  The  bony  fingers 
covered  with  hair  were  like  claws,  as  is  often  the  case  with 
those  who  tell  gold  all  day  long.  Two  parallel  lines  furrowed 
the  face  from  the  cheek-bones  to  the  mouth — an  unerring  sign 
that  here  was  a  man  whose  whole  soul  was  taken  up  with 
material  interests ;  while  the  eyebrows  sloped  up  towards  the 
temples  in  a  manner  which  indicated  a  habit  of  swift  decision. 
Grim  and  hard  though  the  mouth  looked,  there  was  something 
there  that  suggested  an  underlying  kindliness,  real  good- 
heartedness,  not  called  forth  in  a  life  of  money-getting,  and 
choked,  it  may  be,  by  cares  of  this  world,  but  which  might 
revive  at  contact  with  a  woman. 

At  the  sight  of  this  apparition,  something  clutched  cruelly 
at  Veronique's  heart.  Everything  grew  dark  before  her  eyes. 
She  thought  she  cried  out,  but  in  reality  she  sat  still,  mute, 
staring  with  fixed  eyes. 

"  Veronique,"  said  old  Sauviat,  "  this  is  M.  Graslin." 

Veronique  rose  to  her  feet  and  bowed,  then  she  sank  down 

into  her  chair  again,  and  her  eyes  sought  her  mother.     But 

La  Sauviat  was  smiling  at  the  millionaire,  looking  so  happy, 

so  very  happy,  that  the  poor  child  gathered  courage  to  hide 


VtMONlQUE.  ft 

hef  -Violent  feeling  of  repulsion  and  the  shock  she5  had  re- 
ceived. In  the  midst  of  the  conversation  which  followed, 
something  was  said  about  Graslin's  health.  The  banker 
looked  naively  at  himself  in  the  beveled  mirror  framed  in 
ebony. 

"I  am  not  handsome,  mademoiselle,"  he  said,  and  he  ex- 
plained that  the  redness  of  his  face  was  due  to  his  busy  life, 
and  told  them  how  he  had  disobeyed  his  doctor's  orders.  He 
hoped  that  as  soon  as  he  had  a  woman  to  look  after  him  and 
his  household,  a  wife  who  would  take  more  care  of  him  than 
he  took  of  himself,  he  should  look  quite  a  different  man. 

"As  if  anybody  married  a  man  for  his  looks,  mate  !  "  cried 
the  dealer  in  old  iron,  slapping  his  fellow-countryman  on  the 
thigh. 

Graslin's  explanation  appealed  to  instinctive  feelings  which 
more  or  less  fill  every  woman's  heart.  Veronique  bethought 
herself  of  her  own  face,  marred  by  a  hideous  disease,  and  in 
her  Christian  humility  she  thought  better  of  her  first  impres- 
sion. Just  then  some  one  whistled  in  the  street  outside, 
Graslin  went  down,  followed  by  Sauviat,  who  felt  uneasy. 
Both  men  soon  returned.  The  porter  had  brought  the  first 
bouquet  of  flowers,  which  had  been  in  readiness  for  the  occa- 
sion. At  the  reappearance  of  the  banker  with  this  stack  of 
exotic  blossoms,  which  he  offered  to  his  future  bride,  Ver- 
onique's  feelings  were  very  different  from  those  with  which 
she  had  first  seen  Graslin  himself.  The  room  was  filled  with 
the  sweet  scent,  for  Veronique  it  was  a  realization  of  her  day- 
dreams of  the  tropics.  She  had  never  seen  white  camellias 
before,  had  never  known  the  scent  of  the  Alpine  cytisus,  the 
exquisite  fragrance  of  the  citronella,  the  jessamine  of  the 
Azores,  the  verbena  and  musk-rose,  and  their  sweetness,  like 
a  melody  in  perfume,  falling  on  her  senses  stirred  a  vague 
tenderness  in  her  heart. 

Graslin  left  Veronique  under  the  spell  of  that  emotion  ;  but 
almost  nightly  after  Sauviat  returned  home  the  banker  waited 


28  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

till  all  Limoges  was  asleep,  and  then  slunk  along  under  the 
walls  to  the  house  where  the  dealer  in  old  iron  lived.  He 
used  to  tap  softly  on  the  shutters,  the  dog  did  not  bark,  the 
old  man  came  down  and  opened  the  door  to  his  fellow-coun- 
tryman, and  Graslin  would  spend  a  couple  of  hours  in  the 
brown  room  where  Veronique  sat,  and  Mother  Sauviat  would 
serve  him  up  an  Auvergnat  supper.  The  uncouth  lover  never 
came  without  a  bouquet  for  Veronique,  rare  flowers  only  to  be 
procured  in  M.  Grossetete's  hothouse,  M.  Grossetete  being  the 
only  person  in  Limoges  in  the  secret  of  the  marriage.  The 
porter  went  after  dark  to  bring  the  bouquet,  which  old  Gros- 
setete always  gathered  himself. 

During  those  two  months  Graslin  went  about  fifty  times  to 
the  house,  and  never  without  some  handsome  present,  rings, 
a  gold  watch,  a  chain,  a  dressing-case,  or  the  like ;  amazing 
lavishness  on  his  part,  which,  however,  is  easily  explained. 

Veronique  would  bring  him  almost  the  whole  of  her  father's 
fortune — she  would  have  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
francs.  The  old  man  kept  for  himself  an  income  of  eight 
thousand  francs,  an  old  investment  in  the  Funds,  made  when 
he  was  in  imminent  danger  of  losing  his  head  on  the  scaffold. 
In  those  days  he  had  put  sixty  thousand  francs  in  assignats 
(the  half  of  his  fortune)  into  government  stock.  It  was 
Brezac  who  advised  the  investment,  and  dissuaded  him  after- 
wards when  he  thought  of  selling  out ;  it  was  Brezac,  too, 
who  in  the  same  emergency  had  been  a  faithful  trustee  for  the 
rest  of  his  fortune — the  vast  sum  of  seven  hundred  gold  louis, 
with  which  Sauviat  began  to  speculate  as  soon  as  he  made 
good  his  escape  from  prison.  In  thirty  years'  time  each  of 
those  gold  louis  had  been  transmuted  into  a  bill  for  a  thousand 
francs,  thanks  partly  to  the  interest  on  the  assignats,  partly  to 
the  money  which  fell  in  at  the  time  of  Champagnac's  death, 
partly  to  trading  gains  in  the  business,  and  the  money  stand- 
ing at  compound  interest  in  Brezac's  concern.  Brezac  had 
done  honestly  by  Sauviat,  as  Auvergnat  does  by  Auvergnat. 


VERONIQUE.  29 

And  so  whenever  Sauviat  went  to  take  a  look  at  the  front  of 
Graslin 's  great  house — 

"  Veronique  shall  live  in  that  palace  !  "  he  said  to  himself. 

He  knew  that  there  was  not  another  girl  in  Limousin  who 
would  have  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs  paid  down 
on  her  marriage-day,  beside  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
of  expectations.  Graslin,  the  son-in-law  of  his  choice,  must 
therefore  inevitably  marry  Veronique.  So  every  evening  Ver- 
onique received  a  bouquet,  which  daily  made  her  little  sitting- 
room  bright  with  flowers,  a  bouquet  carefully  kept  out  of  sight 
of  the  neighbors.  She  admired  the  beautiful  jewels,  the 
rubies,  pearls  and  diamonds,  the  bracelets,  dear  to  all  daugh- 
ters of  Eve,  and  thought  herself  less  ugly  thus  adorned.  She 
saw  her  mother  happy  over  this  marriage,  and  she  herself  had 
no  standard  of  comparison ;  she  had  no  idea  what  marriage 
meant,  no  conception  of  its  duties ;  and  finally  she  heard  the 
curate  of  Saint-Etienne  praising  Graslin  to  her,  in  his  solemn 
voice,  telling  her  that  this  was  an  honorable  man  with  whom  she 
would  lead  an  honorable  life.  So  Veronique  consented  to  receive 
M.  Graslin's  attentions.  In  a  lonely  and  monotonous  life  like 
hers,  let  a  single  person  present  himself  day  by  day,  and  before 
long  that  person  will  not  be  indifferent ;  for  either  an  aversion, 
confirmed  by  a  deeper  knowledge,  will  turn  to  hate,  and  the 
visitor's  presence  will  be  intolerable ;  or  custom  stales  (so  to 
speak)  the  sight  of  physical  defects,  and  then  the  mind  begins 
to  look  for  compensations.  Curiosity  busies  itself  with  the 
face ;  from  some  cause  or  other  the  features  light  up,  there  is 
some  fleeting  gleam  of  beauty  there ;  and  at  last  the  nature, 
hidden  beneath  the  outward  form,  is  discovered.  In  short, 
first  impressions  once  overcome,  the  force  with  which  the  one 
soul  is  attracted  to  the  other  is  but  so  much  the  stronger, 
because  the  discovery  of  the  true  nature  of  the  other  is  all 
its  own.  So  love  invariably  begins.  Herein  lies  the  secret 
of  the  passionate  love  which  beautiful  persons  entertain  for 
others  who  are  not  beautiful  in  appearance ;  affection,  looking 


30  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

deeper  than  the  outward  form,  sees  the  form  no  longer,  but  a 
soul,  and  thenceforward  knows  nothing  else.  Moreover,  the 
beauty  so  necessary  in  a  woman  takes  in  a  man  such  a  strange 
character,  that  women's  opinions  differ  as  much  on  the  sub- 
ject of  a  man's  good  looks  as  men  about  the  beauty  of  a 
woman. 

After  much  meditation  and  many  struggles  with  herself, 
Veronique  allowed  the  banns  to  be  published,  and  all  Limoges 
rang  with  the  incredible  news.  Nobody  knew  the  secret — 
the  bride's  immense  dowry.  If  that  had  been  bruited  abroad, 
Veronique  might  have  chosen  her  husband,  but  perhaps  even 
so  would  have  been  mistaken.  It  was  a  love-match  on  Gras- 
lin's  side,  people  averred. 

Upholsterers  arrived  from  Paris  to  furnish  the  fine  house. 
The  banker  was  going  to  great  expense  over  it,  and  nothing 
else  was  talked  of  in  Limoges.  People  discussed  the  price  of 
the  chandeliers,  the  gilding  of  the  drawing-room,  the  mythi- 
cal subjects  of  the  timepieces  ;  and  there  were  well-informed 
folk  who  could  describe  the  flower-stands  and  the  porcelain 
stoves,  the  luxurious  novel  contrivances.  For  instance,  there 
was  an  aviary  built  above  the  ice-house  in  the  garden  of  the 
Hotel  Graslin  ;  all  Limoges  marveled  at  the  rare  birds  in  it — 
the  paroquets,  and  Chinese  pheasants,  and  strange  water- 
fowl, there  was  no  one  who  had  not  seen  them. 

M.  and  Mme.  Grossetete,  old  people  much  looked  up  to  in 
Limoges,  called  several  times  upon  the  Sauviats,  Graslin 
accompanying  them.  Mme.  Grossetete,  worthy  woman,  con- 
gratulated Veronique  on  the  fortunate  marriage  she  was  to 
make ;  so  the  Church,  the  family,  and  the  world,  together 
with  every  trifling  circumstance,  combined  to  bring  this 
match  about. 

In  the  month  of  April  formal  invitations  were  sent  to  all 
Graslin's  circle  of  acquaintance.  At  eleven  o'clock  one  fine 
sunny  morning  a  caleche  and  a  brougham,  drawn  by  Limousin 
horses,  in  Pngli.sli  harness,  (old  Grossetete  had  superintended 


VgRONIQUE.  31 

his  colleague's  stable),  arrived  before  the  poor  little  shop 
where  the  dealer  in  old  iron  lived ;  and  the  excited  quarter 
beheld  the  bridegroom's  sometime  partners  and  his  two 
clerks.  There  was  a  prodigious  sensation,  the  street  was  filled 
by  the  crowd  eager  to  see  the  Sauviats'  daughter.  The  most 
celebrated  hairdresser  in  Limoges  had  set  the  bride's  crown 
on  her  beautiful  hair  and  arranged  her  veil  of  priceless  Brus- 
sels lace  ;  but  Veronique's  dress  was  of  simple  white  muslin. 
A  sufficiently  imposing  assembly  of  the  most  distinguished 
women  of  Limoges  was  present  at  the  wedding  in  the  cathe- 
dral ;  the  bishop  himself,  knowing  the  piety  of  the  Sauviats, 
condescended  to  perform  the  marriage  ceremony.  People 
thought  the  bride  a  plain-looking  girl.  For  the  first  time  she 
entered  her  hotel,  and  went  from  surprise  to  surprise.  A  state 
dinner  preceded  the  ball,  to  which  Graslin  had  invited  almost 
all  Limoges.  The  dinner  given  to  the  bishop,  the  prefect, 
the  president  of  the  court  of  first  instance,  the  public  prose- 
cutor, the  mayor,  the  general,  and  to  Graslin's  sometime 
employers  and  their  wives  was  a  triumph  for  the  bride,  who, 
like  all  simple  and  unaffected  people,  proved  unexpectedly 
charming.  None  of  the  married  people  would  dance,  so  that 
Veronique  continued  to  do  the  honors  of  her  house,  and  won 
the  esteem  and  good  graces  of  most  of  her  new  acquaint- 
ances ;  asking  old  Grossetete,  who  had  taken  a  great  kindness 
for  her,  for  information  about  her  guests,  and  so  avoiding 
blunders.  During  the  evening  the  two  retired  bankers  spread 
the  news  of  the  fortune,  immense  for  Limousin,  which  the 
parents  of  the  bride  had  given  her.  At  nine  o'clock  the 
dealer  in  old  iron  went  home  to  bed,  leaving  his  wife  to  pre- 
side at  the  ceremony  of  undressing  the  bride.  It  was  said  in 
the  town  that  Mme.  Graslin  was  plain  but  well  shaped. 

Old  Sauviat  sold  his  business  and  his  house  in  the  town, 
and  bought  a  cottage  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Vienne,  between 
Limoges  and  Le  Cluzeau,  and  ten  minutes'  walk  from  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Martial.      Here    he  meant  that  he  and  his 


32  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

wife  should  end  their  days  in  peace.  The  two  old  people  had 
rooms  in  Graslin's  hotel,  and  dined  there  once  or  twice  a  week 
with  their  daughter,  whose  walks  usually  took  the  direction 
of  their  house. 

The  retired  dealer  in  old  iron  had  nothing  to  do,  and  nearly 
died  of  leisure.  Luckily  for  him,  his  son-in-law  found  him 
some  occupation.  In  1823  the  banker  found  himself  with  a 
porcelain  factory  on  his  hands.  He  had  lent  large  sums  to 
the  manufacturers,  which  they  were  unable  to  repay,  so  he  had 
taken  over  the  business  to  recoup  himself.  In  this  concern 
he  invested  more  capital,  and  by  this  means,  and  by  his  exten- 
sive business  connections,  made  of  it  one  of  the  largest  facto- 
ries in  Limoges ;  so  that  when  he  sold  it  in  three  years  after 
he  took  it  over,  he  made  a  large  profit  on  the  transaction. 
He  made  his  father-in-law  the  manager  of  this  factory,  situated 
in  the  very  same  quarter  of  Saint-Martial  where  his  house 
stood  ;  and  in  spite  of  Sauviat's  seventy-two  years,  he  had 
done  not  a  little  in  bringing  about  the  prosperity  of  a  busi- 
ness in  which  he  grew  quite  young  again.  The  plan  had  its 
advantages  likewise  lor  Graslin  ;  but  for  old  Sauviat,  who 
threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  porcelain  factory,  he 
would  perhaps  have  been  obliged  to  take  a  clerk  into  part- 
nership and  lose  part  of  the  profits,  which  he  now  received 
in  full ;  but  as  it  was,  he  could  look  after  his  own  affairs  in 
the  town,  and  feel  his  mind  at  ease  as  to  the  capital  invested  in 
the  porcelain  works. 

In  1827  Sauviat  met  with  an  accident,  which  ended  in  his 
death.  He  was  busy  with  the  stock-taking,  when  he  stumbled 
over  one  of  the  crates  in  which  the  china  was  packed,  grazing 
his  leg  slightly.  He  took  no  care  of  himself,  and  mortifica- 
tion set  in  ;  they  talked  of  amputation,  but  he  would  not  hear 
of  losing  his  leg,  and  so  he  died.  His  widow  made  over  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs,  the  amount  of  Sauviat's 
estate,  to  her  daughter  and  son-in-law,  Graslin  undertaking  to 
pay    her   two    hundred    francs  a    month,  an  amount  amply 


VERONIQUE.  33 

sufficient  for  her  needs.  She  persisted  in  living  on  without 
a  servant  in  the  little  cottage;  keeping  her  point  with  the 
obstinacy  of  old  age  and  in  spite  of  her  daughter's  entreat- 
ies j  but,  on  the  other  hand,  she  went  almost  every  day  to 
the  Hotel  Graslin,  and  Veronique's  walks,  as  heretofore, 
usually  ended  at  her  mother's  house.  There  was  a  charm- 
ing view  from  the  windows  of  the  river  and  the  little  island 
in  the  Vienne,  which  Veronique  had  loved  in  the  old  days, 
and  called  her  Isle  of  France. 

The  story  of  the  Sauviats  has  been  anticipated  partly  to  save 
interruption  to  the  other  story  of  the  Graslins'  household,  partly 
because  it  serves  to  explain  some  of  the  reasons  of  the  retired 
life  which  Veronique  Graslin  led.  The  old  mother  foresaw 
how  much  her  child  might  one  day  be  made  to  suffer  through 
Graslin's  avarice  ;  for  long  she  held  out,  and  refused  to  give 
up  the  rest  of  her  fortune,  and  only  gave  way  when  Veron- 
ique insisted  upon  it.  Veronique  was  incapable  of  imagin- 
ing circumstances  in  which  a  wife  desires  to  have  the  control 
of  her  property,  ana!  acted  upon  a  generous  impulse ;  in  this 
way  she  meant  to  thank  Graslin  for  giving  her  back  her 
liberty. 

The  unaccustomed  splendors  of  Graslin's  marriage  had  been 
totally  at  variance  with  his  habits  and  nature.  The  great 
capitalist's  ideas  were  very  narrow.  Veronique  had  had  no 
opportunity  of  gauging  the  man  with  whom  she  must  spend  the 
rest  of  her  life.  During  those  fifty-five  evening  visits  Graslin 
had  shown  but  one  side  of  his  character — the  man  of  business, 
the  undaunted  worker  who  planned  and  carried  out  large 
undertakings,  the  capitalist  who  looked  at  public  affairs  with 
a  view  to  their  probable  effect  on  the  bank-rate  and  oppor- 
tunities of  money-making.  And,  under  the  influence  of  his 
father-in-law's  million,  Graslin  had  behaved  generously  in 
those  days,  though  even  then  his  lavish  expenditure  was 
made  to  gain  his  own  ends ;  he  was  drawn  into  expense  in 
the  springtide  days  of  his  marriage  partly  by  the  possession 
3 


34  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON, 

of  the  great  house,  which  he  called  his  "Folly,"  the  house 
still  called  the  Hotel  Graslin  in  Limoges. 

As  he  had  the  horses,  the  caleche,  and  brougham,  it  was 
natural  to  make  use  of  them  to  pay  a  round  of  visits  on  his 
marriage,  and  to  go  to  the  dinner-parties  and  dances  given  in 
honor  of  the  bride  by  official  dignitaries  and  wealthy  houses, 
Acting  on  the  impulses  which  carried  him  out  of  his  ordinary 
sphere,  Graslin  was  "at  home"  to  callers  one  day  in  the 
week,  and  sent  to  Paris  for  a  cook.  For  about  a  year,  indeed, 
he  led  the  ordinary  life  of  a  man  who  has  seventeen  hundred 
thousand  francs  of  his  own,  and  can  command  a  capital  of 
three  millions.  He  had  come  to  be  the  most  conspicuous 
personage  in  Limoges.  During  that  year  he  generously  al- 
lowed Mme.  Graslin  twenty-five  twenty-franc  pieces  every 
month. 

Veronique  on  her  marriage  had  become  a  person  of  great 
interest  to  the  rank  and  fashion  of  Limoges ;  she  was  a  kind 
of  godsend  to  the  idle  curiosity  which  finds  such  meagre  suste- 
nance in  the  provinces.  Veronique  who  had  so  suddenly  made 
her  appearance  was  a  phenomenon,  the  more  closely  scruti- 
nized on  that  account ;  but  she  always  maintained  the  simple 
and  unaffected  attitude  of  an  onlooker  who  watches  manners 
and  usages  unknown  to  her,  and  seeks  to  conform  to  them. 
From  the  first  she  had  been  pronounced  to  have  a  good  figure 
and  a  plain  face,  and  now  it  was  decided  that  she  was  good- 
natured,  but  stupid.  She  was  learning  so  many  things  at  once, 
she  had  so  much  to  see  and  to  hear,  that  her  manner  and  talk 
gave  some  color  to  this  accusation.  A  sort  of  torpor,  more- 
over, had  stolen  over  her  which  might  well  be  mistaken  for 
stupidity.  Marriage,  that  "difficult  profession"  of  wifehood, 
as  she  called  it,  in  which  the  Church,  the  Code,  and  her  own 
mother  bade  her  practice  the  most  complete  resignation  and 
perfect  obedience,  under  pain  of  breaking  all  laws  human  and 
divine,  and  bringing  about  irreparable  evils ;  marriage  had 
plunged  her  into  a  bewilderment  which  grew  to  the  pitch  of 


VERONIQUE,  %& 

vertigo  and  delirium.  While  she  sat  silent  and  reserved,  she 
heard  her  own  thoughts  as  plainly  as  the  voices  about  her. 
For  her  "existence"  had  come  to  be  extremely  "difficult," 
to  use  the  phrase  of  the  dying  Fontenelle,  and  ever  more 
increasingly,  till  she  grew  frightened,  she  was  afraid  of  her- 
self. Nature  recoiled  from  the  orders  of  the  soul ;  the  body 
rebelled  against  the  will.  The  poor  snared  creature  wept  on 
the  bosom  of  the  great  Mother  of  the  sorrowful  and  afflicted  ; 
she  betook  herself  to  the  Church,  she  redoubled  her  fervor, 
she  confided  to  her  director  the  temptations  which  assailed 
her,  she  poured  out  her  soul  in  prayer.  Never  at  any  time  in 
her  life  did  she  fulfill  her  religious  duties  so  zealously.  The 
tempest  of  despair  which  filled  her  when  she  knew  that  she 
did  not  love  her  husband  flung  her  at  the  foot  of  the  altar, 
where  divine  comforting  voices  spoke  to  her  of  patience. 
And  she  was  patient  and  sweet,  living  in  hope  of  the  joys  of 
motherhood. 

"Did  you  see  Mme.  Graslin  this  morning?"  the  women 
asked  among  themselves.  "Marriage  does  not  agree  with 
her;  she  looked  quite  ghastly." 

"Yes;  but  would  you  have  given  a  daughter  of  yours  to  a 
man  like  M.  Graslin  ?  Of  course,  if  you  marry  such  a  mon- 
ster, you  suffer  for  it." 

As  soon  as  Graslin  was  fairly  married,  all  the  mothers  who 
had  assiduously  hunted  him  for  the  past  ten  years  directed 
spiteful  speeches  at  him.  Veronique  grew  thin,  and  became 
plain  in  good  earnest.  Her  eyes  were  heavy,  her  features 
coarsened,  she  looked,  shamefaced  and  embarrassed,  and  wore 
the  dreary,  chilling  expression  so  repellent  in  bigoted  devo- 
tees. A  grayish  tint  overspread  her  complexion.  She  dragged 
herself  languidly  about  during  the  first  year  of  her  marriage, 
usually  the  heyday  of  a  woman's  life.  Before  very  long  she 
sought  for  distraction  in  books,  making  use  of  her  privilege  as 
a  married  woman  to  read  everything.  She  read  Scott's  novels, 
Byron's  poems,  the  works  of  Schiller  and  Goethe,  literature 


36  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

ancient  and  modern.  She  learned  to  ride,  to  dance,  and 
draw.  She  made  sepia  drawings  and  sketches  in  water-color, 
eager  to  learn  every  device  which  women  use  to  while  away 
the  tedium  of  solitary  hours;  in  short,  that  second  education 
which  a  woman  nearly  always  undertakes  for  a  man's  sake  and 
with  his  guidance,  she  undertook  alone  and  for  herself. 

In  the  loftiness  of  a  nature  frank  and  free,  brought  up,  as 
it  were,  in  the  desert,  but  fortified  by  religion,  there  was  a 
wild  grandeur,  cravings  which  found  no  satisfaction  in  the 
provincial  society  in  which  she  moved.  All  the  books  de- 
scribed love;  she  looked  up  from  her  books  on  life,  and 
found  no  traces  of  passion  there.  Love  lay  dormant  in  her 
heart  like  the  germs  which  wait  for  the  sun.  Through  a  pro- 
found melancholy,  caused  by  constant  brooding  over  herself, 
she  came  by  dim  and  winding  ways  back  to  the  last  bright 
dreams  of  her  girlhood.  She  dwelt  more  than  once  on  the 
old  romantic  imaginings,  and  became  the  heroine  and  the 
theatre  of  the  drama.  Once  again  she  saw  the  island  bathed 
in  light,  full  of  blossom  and  sweet  scents,  and  all  things  grate- 
ful to  her  soul. 

Not  seldom  her  sad  eyes  wandered  over  her  rooms  with 
searching  curiosity;  the  men  she  saw  were  all  like  Graslin  ; 
she  watched  them  closely,  and  seemed  to  turn  questioningly 
from  them  to  their  wives;  but  on  the  women's  faces  she  saw 
no  sign  of  her  own  secret  trouble,  and  sadly  and  wearily  she 
returned  to  her  starting-point,  uneasy  about  herself.  Her 
highest  thoughts  met  with  a  response  in  the  books  which  she 
read  of  a  morning,  their  wit  pleased  her;  but  in  the  evening 
she  heard  nothing  but  commonplace  thoughts,  which  no  one 
attempted  to  disguise  by  giving  a  witty  turn  to  them ;  the  talk 
around  her  was  vapid  and  empty,  or  ran  upon  gossip  and  local 
news,  which  had  no  interest  for  her.  She  wondered  some- 
times at  the  warmth  of  discussions  in  which  there  was  no 
question  of  sentiment,  for  her  the  very  core  of  life.  She  was 
often  seen  gazing  before  her  with  fixed,  wide  eyes,  thinking, 


VER0N1QUE.  37 

doubtless,  of  hours  which  she  had  spent,  while  still  a  girl 
ignorant  of  life,  in  the  room  where  everything  had  been  in 
keeping  with  her  fancies,  and  now  laid  in  ruins,  like  Veron- 
ique's  own  existence.  She  shrank  in  pain  from  the  thought  of 
being  drawn  into  the  eddy  of  petty  cares  and  interests  like 
the  other  women  among  whom  she  was  forced  to  live ;  her  ill- 
concealed  disdain  of  the  littleness  of  her  lot,  visible  upon  her 
lips  and  brow,  was  taken  for  upstart  insolence. 

Mme.  Graslin  saw  the  coolness  upon  all  faces,  and  felt  a 
certain  bitter  tone  in  the  talk.  She  did  not  understand  the 
reason,  for  as  yet  she  had  not  made  a  friend  sufficiently  inti- 
mate to  enlighten  or  counsel  her.  Injustice,  under  which 
small  natures  chafe,  compels  loftier  souls  to  return  within 
themselves,  and  induces  in  them  a  kind  of  humility.  Veron- 
ique  blamed  herself,  and  tried  to  discover  where  the  fault  lay. 
She  tried  to  be  gracious,  she  was  pronounced  to  be  insincere ; 
she  redoubled  her  kindliness,  and  was  said  to  be  a  hypocrite 
(her  devotion  giving  color  to  the  slander)  ;  she  was  lavish  of 
hospitality,  and  gave  dinners  and  dances,  and  was  accused  of 
pride.  All  Mme.  Graslin's  efforts  were  unsuccessful.  She 
was  misjudged  and  repulsed  by  the  petty  querulous  pride  of 
provincial  coteries,  where  susceptibilities  are  always  upon  the 
watch  for  offenses ;  she  went  no  more  into  society,  and  lived 
in  the  strictest  retirement.  The  love  in  her  heart  turned  to 
the  Church.  The  great  spirit  in  its  feeble  house  of  flesh  saw 
in  the  manifold  behests  of  Catholicism  but  so  many  stones  set 
by  the  brink  of  the  precipices  of  life,  raised  there  by  chari- 
table hands  to  prop  human  weakness  by  the  way.  So  every 
least  religious  observance  was  practiced  with  the  most  punctil- 
ious care. 

Upon  this,  the  Liberal  party  added  Mme.  Graslin's  name 
to  the  list  of  bigots  in  the  town.  She  was  classed  among  the 
Ultras,  and  party  spirit  strengthened  the  various  grudges 
which  Veronique  had  innocently  stored  up  against  herself, 
with  its  periodical  exacerbations.     But  as  she  had  nothing  to 


38  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

lose  by  this  ostracism,  she  went  no  more  into  society,  and  be- 
took herself  to  her  books,  with  the  infinite  resources  which 
they  opened  to  her.  She  thought  over  her  reading,  she 
compared  methods,  she  increased  the  amount  of  her  actual 
knowledge  and  her  power  of  acquiring  it,  and  by  so  doing 
opened  the  gateways  of  her  mind  to  curiosity. 

It  was  at  this  period  of  close  and  persistent  study,  while 
religion  supported  her,  that  she  gained  a  friend  in  M.  Gros- 
setete,  an  old  man  whose  real  ability  had  not  grown  so  rusty 
in  the  course  of  a  life  in  a  country  town  but  that  contact  with 
a  keen  intelligence  could  still  draw  a  few  sparks  from  it.  The 
kind  soul  was  deeply  interested  in  Veronique,  who,  in  return 
for  the  mild  warmth  of  the  mellowed  affection  which  age  alone 
can  give,  put  forth  all  the  treasures  of  her  soul ;  for  him  the 
splendid  powers  cultivated  in  secret  first  blossomed  forth. 

A  fragment  of  a  letter  written  at  this  time  to  M.  Grossetete 
will  describe  the  mental  condition  of  a  woman  who  one  day 
should  give  proof  of  a  firm  temper  and  lofty  nature : 

"  The  flowers  which  you  sent  to  me  for  the  dance  were  very 
lovely,  yet  they  suggested  painful  thoughts.  The  sight  of  that 
beauty,  gathered  by  you  to  decorate  a  festival,  and  to  fade  on 
my  breast  and  in  my  hair,  made  me  think  of  other  flowers 
born  to  die  unseen  in  your  woods,  to  shed  sweet  scent  that  no 
one  breathes.  Then  I  asked  myself  why  I  was  dancing,  why 
I  had  decked  myself  with  flowers,  just  as  I  ask  God  why  I 
am  here  in  the  world.  You  see,  my  friend,  that  in  everything 
there  lurks  a  snare  for  the  unhappy,  just  as  the  drollest  trifles 
bring  the  sick  back  to  their  own  sufferings.  That  is  the 
worst  of  some  troubles :  they  press  upon  us  so  constantly  that 
they  shape  themselves  into  an  idea  which  is  ever  present  in 
our  minds.  An  ever-present  trouble  ought  surely  to  be  a 
hallowed  thought.  You  love  flowers  for  their  own  sake  ;  I 
love  them  as  I  love  beautiful  music.  As  I  once  told  you, 
the  secret  of  a  host  of  things  is  hidden  from  me You, 


VERONIQUE.  39 

my  old  friend,  for  instance,  have  a  passion  for  gardening. 
When  you  come  back  to  town,  teach  me  to  share  in  this  taste 
of  yours ;  send  me  with  a  light  footstep  to  my  hothouse  to  feel 
the  interest  which  you  take  in  watching  your  plants  grow.  You 
seem  to  me  to  live  and  blossom  with  them,  to  take  a  delight  in 
them,  as  in  something  of  your  own  creation  ;  to  discover  new 
colors,  novel  splendors,  which  come  forth  under  your  eyes, 
the  result  of  your  labors.  I  feel  that  the  emptiness  of  my  life 
is  breaking  my  heart.  For  me,  my  hothouse  is  full  of  pining 
souls.  The  distress  which  I  force  myself  to  relieve  saddens 
my  very  soul.  I  find  some  young  mother  without  linen  for 
her  newborn  babe,  some  old  man  starving,  I  make  their 
troubles  mine,  and  even  when  I  have  helped  them,  the  feel- 
ings aroused  in  me  by  the  sight  of  misery  relieved  are  not 
enough  to  satisfy  my  soul.  Oh !  my  friend,  I  feel  that  I  have 
great  powers  asserting  themselves  in  me,  powers  of  doing  evil, 
it  may  be,  which  nothing  can  crush — powers  that  the  hardest 
commandments  of  religion  cannot  humble.  When  I  go  to  see 
my  mother,  when  I  am  quite  alone  among  the  fields,  I  feel 
that  I  must  cry  aloud,  and  I  cry.  My  body  is  the  prison  in 
which  one  of  the  evil  genii  has  pent  up  some  moaning  crea- 
ture, until  the  mysterious  word  shall  be  uttered  which  shatters 
the  cramping  cell.  But  this  comparison  is  not  just.  In  my 
case  it  should  be  reversed.  It  is  the  body  which  is  a  prisoner, 
if  I  may  make  use  of  the  expression.  Does  not  religion 
occupy  my  soul  ?  And  the  treasures  gained  by  reading  are 
constant  food  for  the  mind.  Why  do  I  long  for  any  change, 
even  if  it  comes  as  suffering — for  any  break  in  the  enervating 
peace  of  my  lot?  Unless  I  find  some  sentiment  to  uphold 
me,  some  strong  interest  to  cultivate,  I  feel  that  I  shall  drift 
towards  the  abyss  where  every  idea  grows  hazy  and  meaning- 
less, where  character  is  enervated,  where  the  springs  of  one's 
being  grow  slack  and  inert,  where  I  shall  be  no  longer  the 
woman  nature  intended  me  to  be.  That  is  what  my  cries 
mean But   you  will  not  cease   to  send  flowers   to  me 


40  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

because  of  this  outcry  of  mine  ?  Your  friendship  has  been 
so  sweet  and  pleasant  a  thing,  that  it  has  reconciled  me 
with  myself  for  several  months.  Yes,  I  feel  happy  when  \ 
think  that  you  sometimes  throw  a  friendly  glance  over  the 
blossoming  desert-place,  my  inner  self;  that  the  wanderer, 
half-dead  after  her  flight  on  the  fiery  steed  of  a  dream,  will 
meet  with  a  kind  word  of  greeting  from  you  on  her  return." 

Three  years  after  Veronique' s  marriage,  it  occurred  to 
Graslin  that  his  wife  never  used  the  horses,  and,  a  good  op- 
portunity offering  itself,  he  sold  them.  The  carriages  were 
sold  at  the  same  time,  the  coachman  was  dismissed,  and  the 
cook  from  Paris  transferred  to  the  bishop's  establishment.  A 
woman-servant  took  his  place.  Graslin  ceased  to  give  his 
wife  an  allowance,  saying  that  he  would  pay  all  the  bills.  He 
was  the  happiest  man  in  the  world  when  he  met  with  no  op- 
position from  the  wife  who  had  brought  him  a  million.  There 
was  not  much  merit,  it  is  true,  in  Mme.  Graslin's  self-denial. 
She  knew  nothing  of  money,  she  had  been  brought  up  in 
ignorance  of  it  as  an  indispensable  element  in  life.  Graslin 
found  the  sums  which  he  had  given  to  her  lying  in  a  corner 
of  her  desk;  scarcely  any  of  it  had  been  spent.  Veronique 
gave  to  the  poor,  her  trousseau  had  been  so  large  that  as  yet 
she  had  had  scarcely  any  expenses  for  dress.  Graslin  praised 
Veronique  to  all  Limoges  as  the  pattern  of  wives. 

The  splendor  of  the  furniture  gave  him  pangs,  so  he  had  it 
all  shrouded  in  covers.  His  wife's  bedroom,  boudoir,  and 
dressing-room  alone  escaped  this  dispensation,  an  economical 
measure  which  economized  nothing,  for  the  wear  and  tear  to 
the  furniture  is  the  same,  covers  or  no  covers. 

He  next  took  up  his  abode  on  the  ground  floor,  where  the 
counting-house  and  office  had  been  established,  so  he  began 
his  old  life  again,  and  was  as  keen  in  pursuit  of  gain  as  before. 
The  Auvergnat  banker  thought  himself  a  model  husband  be- 
cause he  breakfasted  and  dined  with  his  wife,  who  carefully 


VERONIQUE.  41 

ordered  the  meals  for  him ;  but  he  was  so  extremely  unpunc- 
tual,  that  he  came  in  at  the  proper  hour  scarce  ten  times  a 
month  ;  and  though,  out  of  thoughtfulness,  he  asked  her  never 
to  wait  for  him,  Veronique  always  stayed  to  carve  for  him ; 
she  wanted  to  fulfill  her  wifely  duties  in  some  one  visible 
manner.  His  marriage  had  not  been  a  matter  to  which  the 
banker  gave  much  thought;  his  wife  represented  the  sum  of 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs ;  he  had  not  discov- 
ered that  that  wife  shrank  from  him.  Gradually  he  had  left 
Mme.  Graslin  to  herself,  and  became 'absorbed  in  business; 
and  when  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  have  a  bed  put  up  for 
himself  in  a  room  next  to  his  private  office,  Veronique  saw  that 
his  wishes  were  carried  out  at  once. 

So  after  three  years  of  marriage  this  ill-assorted  couple  went 
their  separate  ways  as  before,  and  felt  glad  to  return  to  them. 
The  capitalist,  owner  now  of  eighteen  hundred  thousand 
francs,  returned  to  his  occupation  of  money-making  with  all 
the  more  zest  after  the  brief  interval.  His  two  clerks  and  the 
office-boy  were  somewhat  better  lodged  and  a  little  better  fed 
— that  was  all  the  difference  between  the  past  and  the  present. 
His  wife  had  a  cook  and  a  waiting-maid  (the  two  servants 
could  not  well  be  dispensed  with),  and  no  calls  were  made  on 
Graslin's  purse  except  for  strict  necessaries. 

And  Veronique  was  happy  in  the  turn  things  had  taken ; 
she  saw  in  the  banker's  satisfaction  a  compensation  for  a  sep- 
aration for  which  she  had  never  asked  ;  it  was  impossible 
that  Graslin  should  shrink  from  her  as  she  shrank  from  him. 
She  was  half-glad,  half-sorry  of  this  secret  divorce ;  she  had 
looked  forward  to  motherhood,  which  should  bring  a  new 
interest  into  her  life;  but  in  spite  of  their  mutual  resig- 
nation, there  was  no  child  of  the  marriage  as  yet  in   1828. 

So  Mme.  Graslin,  envied  by  all  Limoges,  led  as  lonely 
a  life  in  her  splendid  home  as  formerly  in  her  father's 
hovel ;  but  the  hopes  and  the  childish  joys  of  inexperience 
were  gone.     She  lived  in  the  ruins  of  her  "castles  in  Spain," 


42  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

enlightened  by  sad  experience,  sustained  by  a  devout  faith, 
busying  herself  for  the  poor  of  the  district,  whom  she  loaded 
with  kindnesses.  She  made  baby  linen  for  them ;  she  gave 
sheets  and  bedding  to  those  who  lay  on  straw;  she  went 
everywhere  with  her  maid — a  good  Auvergnate  whom  her 
mother  found  for  her.  This  girl  attached  herself  body  and 
soul  to  her  mistress,  and  became  a  charitable  spy  for  her, 
whose  mission  it  was  to  find  out  trouble  to  soothe  and  distress 
to  relieve.  This  life  of  busy  benevolence  and  of  punctilious 
performance  of  the  duties  enjoined  by  the  Church  was  a  hidden 
life,  only  known  by  the  cures  of  the  town  who  directed  it,  for 
Veronique  took  their  counsel  in  all  that  she  did,  so  that  the 
money  intended  for  the  deserving  poor  should  not  be  squan- 
dered by  vice. 

During  these  years  Veronique  found  another  friendship 
quite  as  precious  to  her  and  as  warm  as  her  friendship  with  old 
Grossetete.  She  became  one  of  the  flock  of  the  Abbe  Du- 
theil,  one  of  the  vicars-general  of  the  diocese.  This  priest 
belonged  to  the  small  minority  among  the  French  clergy  who 
lean  towards  concession,  who  would  fain  associate  the  Church 
with  the  popular  cause.  By  putting  evangelical  principles  in 
practice,  the  Church  should  gain  her  old  ascendency  over  the 
people,  whom  she  could  then  bind  to  the  Monarchy.  But 
the  Abbe  Dutheil's  merits  were  unrecognized,  and  he  was 
persecuted.  Perhaps  he  had  seen  that  it  was  hopeless  to 
attempt  to  enlighten  the  Court  of  Rome  and  the  clerical 
party ;  perhaps  he  had  sacrificed  his  convictions  at  the  bid- 
ding of  his  superiors  ;  at  any  rate,  he  dwelt  within  the  limits 
of  the  strictest  orthodoxy,  knowing  the  while  that  the  mere 
expression  of  his  convictions  would  close  his  way  to  a  bish- 
opric. A  great  and  Christian  humility,  blended  with  a  lofty 
character,  distinguished  this  eminent  churchman.  He  had 
neither  pride  nor  ambition,  and  stayed  at  his  post,  doing  his 
duty  in  the  midst  of  peril.  The  Liberal  party  in  the  town, 
who  knew  nothing  of  his   motives,  quoted  his  opinions  in 


V&RONIQUE.  43 

support  of  their  own,  and  reckoned  him  as  a  "patriot,"  a 
word  which  means  "  a  revolutionaire  "  for  good  Catholics. 
He  was  beloved  by  those  below  him,  who  did  not  dare  to 
praise  his  worth ;  dreaded  by  his  equals,  who  watched  him 
narrowly ;  and  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  his  bishop.  He  was 
not  exactly  persecuted,  his  learning  and  virtues  were  too  well 
known  ;  it  was  impossible  to  find  fault  with  him  freely,  though 
he  criticised  the  blunders  in  policy  by  which  the  Throne  and 
the  Church  alternately  compromised  each  other,  and  pointed 
out  the  inevitable  results;  like  poor  Cassandra,  he  was  reviled 
by  his  own  party  before  and  after  the  fall  which  he  predicted. 
Nothing  short  of  a  revolution  was  likely  to  shake  the  Abb6 
Dutheil  from  his  place ;  he  was  a  foundation-stone  in  the 
Church,  an  unseen  block  of  granite  on  which  everything  else 
rests.  His  utility  was  recognized,  and — he  was  left  in  his 
place,  like  most  of  the  real  power  of  which  mediocrity  is 
jealous  and  afraid.  If,  like  the  Abbe  de  Lamennais,  he  had 
taken  up  the  pen,  he  would  probably  have  shared  his  fate ;  at 
him,  too,  the  thunderbolts  of  Rome  would  have  been 
launched. 

In  person  the  Abbe  Dutheil  was  commanding.  Something 
in  his  appearance  spoke  of  a  soul  so  profound  that  the  surface 
is  always  calm  and  smooth.  His  height  and  spare  frame  did 
not  mar  the  general  effect  of  the  outlines  of  his  figure,  which 
vaguely  recalled  those  forms  which  Spanish  painters  loved 
best  to  paint  for  great  monastic  thinkers  and  dreamers — forms 
which  Thorvaldsen  in  our  own  time  has  selected  for  his 
apostles.  His  face,  with  the  long,  almost  austere  lines  in  it, 
which  bore  out  the  impression  made  by  the  straight  folds  of 
his  garments,  possessed  the  same  charm  which  the  sculptors 
of  the  middle  ages  discovered  and  recorded  in  the  mystic 
figures  about  the  doorways  of  their  churches.  His  grave 
thoughts,  grave  words,  and  grave  tones  were  all  in  keeping, 
and  the  expression  of  the  Abbe's  personality.  At  the  first 
sight  of  the  dark  eyes,  which  austerity  had  surrounded  with 


44  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

hollow  shadowy  circles ;  the  forehead,  yellowed  like  old 
marble ;  the  bony  outlines  of  the  head  and  hands,  no  one 
could  have  expected  to  hear  any  voice  but  his,  or  any  teaching 
but  that  which  fell  from  his  lips.  It  was  this  purely  physical 
grandeur,  in  keeping  with  the  moral  grandeur  of  his  nature, 
that  gave  him  a  certain  seeming  haughtiness  and  aloofness, 
belied,  it  is  true,  by  his  humility  and  his  talk,  yet  unpre- 
possessing in  the  first  instance.  In  a  higher  position  these 
qualities  would  have  been  advantages  which  would  have 
enabled  him  to  gain  a  necessary  ascendency  over  the  crowd 
— an  ascendency  which  it  is  quick  to  feel  and  to  recognize ; 
but  he  was  a  subordinate,  and  a  man's  superiors  never  pardon 
him  for  possessing  the  natural  insignia  of  power,  the  majesty 
so  highly  valued  in  an  older  time,  and  often  so  signally 
lacking  in  modern  upholders  of  authority. 

His  colleague,  the  Abbe  de  Grancour,  the  other  vicar- 
general  of  the  diocese,  a  blue-eyed,  stout  little  man  with  a 
florid  complexion,  worked  willingly  enough  with  the  Abbe 
Dutheil,  albeit  their  opinions  were  diametrically  opposed ;  a 
curious  phenomenon,  which  only  a  wily  courtier  will  regard 
as  a  natural  thing ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  the  Abbe  de  Gran- 
cour was  very  careful  not  to  commit  himself  in  any  way 
which  might  cost  him  the  favor  of  his  bishop  ;  the  little  man 
would  have  sacrificed  anything  (even  convictions)  to  stand 
well  in  that  quarter.  He  had  a  sincere  belief  in  his  colleague, 
he  recognized  his  ability  ;  in  private  he  admitted  his  doctrines, 
while  he  condemned  them  in  public  ;  for  men  of  his  kind 
are  attracted  to  a  powerful  character,  while  they  fear  and  hate 
the  superiority  whose  society  they  cultivate.  "  He  would  put 
his  arms  round  my  neck  while  he  condemned  me,"  said  the 
Abbe  Dutheil.  The  Abbe  de  Grancour  had  neither  friends 
nor  enemies,  and  was  likely  to  die  a  vicar-general.  He  gave 
out  that  he  was  drawn  to  Veronique's  house  by  a  wish  to  give 
a  woman  so  benevolent  and  so  devout  the  benefit  of  his 
counsels,    and   the   bishop   signified   his   approval;    but,    in 


VERONlQUE.  45 

reality,  he  was  only  too  delighted  to  spend  an  evening  now 
and  then  in  this  way  with  the  Abbe  Dutheil. 

From  this  time  forward  both  priests  became  pretty  constant 
visitors  in  Veronique's  house ;  they  used  to  bring  her  a  sort 
of  general  report  of  any  distress  in  the  district,  and  talk  over 
the  best  means  of  benefiting  the  poor  morally  and  materially ; 
but  year  by  year  M.  Graslin  drew  the  purse-strings  closer  and 
closer ;  for,  in  spite  of  ingenious  excuses  devised  by  his  wife 
and  Aline  the  maid,  he  suspected  that  all  the  money  was  not 
required  for  expenses  of  dress  and  housekeeping.  He  grew 
angry  at  last  when  he  reckoned  up  the  amount  which  his  wife 
gave  away.  He  himself  would  go  through  the  bills  with  the 
cook,  he  went  minutely  into  the  details  of  their  expenditure, 
and  showed  himself  the  great  administrator  that  he  was  by 
demonstrating  conclusively  from  his  own  experience  that  it 
was  possible  to  live  in  luxury  on  three  thousand  francs  per 
annum.  Whereupon  he  compounded  the  matter  with  his 
wife  by  allowing  her  a  hundred  francs  a  month,  to  be  duly 
accounted  for,  pluming  himself  on  the  royal  bounty  of  the 
grant.  The  garden,  now  handed  over  to  him,  was  "done 
up  "  of  a  Sunday  by  the  porter,  who  had  a  liking  for  garden- 
ing. After  the  gardener  was  dismissed,  the  conservatory  was 
turned  to  account  as  a  warehouse,  where  Graslin  deposited  the 
goods  left  with  him  as  security  for  small  loans.  The  birds  in 
the  aviary  above  the  ice-house  were  left  to  starve,  to  save  the 
expense  of  feeding  them  ;  and  when  at  length  a  winter  passed 
without  a  single  frost,  he  took  that  opportunity  of  declining 
to  pay  for  ice  any  longer.  By  the  year  1828  every  article  of 
luxury  was  curtailed,  and  parsimony  reigned  undisturbed  in 
the  Hotel  Graslin. 

•  During  the  first  three  years  after  Graslin's  marriage,  with 
his  wife  at  hand  to  make  him  follow  out  the  doctor's  instruc- 
tions, his  complexion  had  somewhat  improved ;  now  it 
inflamed  again,  and  became  redder  and  more  florid  than  in 
the  past.      So  largely,  at  the  same  time,   did    his   business 


46  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

increase,  that  the  porter  was  promoted  to  be  a  clerk  (as  his 
master  had  been  before  him),  and  another  Auvergnat  had  to 
be  found  to  do  the  odd  jobs  of  the  Hotel  Graslin. 

After  four  years  of  married  life  the  woman  who  had  so 
much  wealth  had  not  three  francs  to  call  her  own.  To  the 
niggardliness  of  her  parents  succeeded  the  no  less  niggardly 
dispensation  of  her  husband ;  and  Mme.  Graslin,  whose 
benevolent  impulses  were  checked,  felt  the  need  of  money 
for  the  first  time. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1828  Veronique  had  recovered 
the  bloom  of  health  which  had  lent  such  beauty  to  the  inno- 
cent girl  who  used  to  sit  at  the  window  in  the  old  house  in 
the  Rue  de  la  Cite.  She  had  read  widely  since  those  days  ; 
she  had  learned  to  think  and  to  express  her  thoughts ;  the 
habit  of  forming  accurate  judgments  had  lent  profundity  to 
her  features.  The  little  details  of  social  life  had  become 
familiar  to  her,  she  wore  a  fashionable  toilet  with  the  most 
perfect  ease  and  grace.  If  chance  brought  her  into  a  draw- 
ing-room at  this  time,  she  found,  not  without  surprise,  that 
she  was  received  with  something  like  respectful  esteem ;  this 
way  of  regarding  her,  like  her  reception,  was  due  to  the  two 
vicars-general  and  old  Grossetgte.  The  bishop  and  one  or 
two  influential  people,  hearing  of  Veronique's  unwearying 
benevolence,  had  talked  about  this  fair  life  hidden  from  the 
world,  this  violet  perfumed  with  virtues,  this  blossom  of  un- 
feigned piety.  So,  all  unknown  to  Mme.  Graslin,  a  revolu- 
tion had  been  wrought  in  her  favor  ;  one  of  those  reactions 
so  much  the  more  lasting  and  sure  because  they  are  slowly 
affected.  .  With  this  right-about-face  in  opinion  Veronique 
became  a  power  in  the  land.  Her  drawing-room  was  the 
resort  of  the  luminaries  of  Limoges;  the  practical  change 
was  brought  about  by  this  means: 

The  young  Vicomte  de  Granville  came  to  the  town  at  the 
end  of  that  year,  preceded  by  the  ready-made  reputation 
which  awaits  a  Parisian  on  his  arrival  in  the  provinces.     He 


vAronique.  41 

had  been  appointed  deputy  public  prosecutor  to  the  Court 
of  Limoges.  A  few  days  after  his  arrival  he  said,  in  answer 
to  a  sufficiently  silly  question,  that  Mme.  Graslin  was  the 
cleverest,  most  amiable,  and  most  distinguished  woman  in 
the  city,  and  this  at  the  prefect's  "At  Home,"  and  before  a 
whole  room  full  of  people. 

"  And  the  most  beautiful  as  well,  perhaps  ?  "  suggested  the 
receiver-general's  wife. 

"  There  I  do  not  venture  to  agree  with  you,"  he  answered ; 
"  when  m you  are  present  I  am  unable  to  decide.  Mme.  Gras- 
lin's  beauty  is  not  of  a  kind  which  should  inspire  jealousy  in 
you,  she  never  appears  in  broad  daylight.  Mme.  Graslin  is 
only  beautiful  for  those  whom  she  loves  ;  you  are  beautiful  for 
all  eyes.  If  Mme.  Graslin  is  deeply  stirred,  her  face  is  trans- 
formed by  its  expression.  It  is  like  a  landscape,  dreary  in 
winter,  glorious  in  summer.  Most  people  only  see  it  in  winter ; 
but  if  you  watch  her  while  she  talks  with  her  friends  on  some 
literary  or  philosophical  subject,  or  upon  some  religious  ques- 
tion which  interests  her,  her  face  lights  up,  and  suddenly  she 
becomes  another  woman,  a  woman  of  wonderful  beauty." 

This  declaration,  a  recognition  of  the  same  beautiful  trans- 
figuration which  Veronique's  face  underwent  as  she  returned 
to  her  place  from  the  communion  table,  made  a  sensation  in 
Limoges,  for  the  new  substitute  (destined,  it  was  said,  to  be 
attorney-general  one  day)  was  the  hero  of  the  hour.  In 
every  country  town  a  man  a  little  above  the  ordinary  level 
becomes  for  a  shorter  or  longer  time  the  subject  of  a  craze,  a 
sham  enthusiasm  to  which  the  idol  of  the  moment  falls  a 
victim.  To  these  freaks  of  the  provincial  drawing-room  we 
owe  the  local  genius  and  the  person  who  suffers  from  the 
chronic  complaint  of  unappreciated  superiority.  Sometimes 
it  is  native  talent  which  women  discover  and  bring  into  fashion, 
but  more  frequently  it  is  some  outsider  ;  and  for  once,  in  the 
case  of  the  Vicomte  de  Granville,  the  homage  was  paid  to 
genuine  ability. 


48  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

The  Parisian  found  that  Mme.  Graslin  was  the  only  woman 
with  whom  he  could  exchange  ideas  or  carry  on  a  sustained 
and  varied  conversation  ;  and  a  few  months  after  his  arrival, 
as  the  charm  of  her  talk  and  manner  gained  upon  him,  he 
suggested  to  some  of  the  prominent  men  in  the  town,  and  to 
the  Abbe  Dutheil  among  them,  that  they  might  make  their 
party  at  whist  of  an  evening  in  Mme.  Graslin's  drawing-room. 
So  Veronique  was  at  home  to  her  friends  for  five  nights  in  the 
week  (two  days  she  wished  to  keep  free,  she  said,  for  her  own 
concerns) ;  and  when  the  cleverest  men  in  the  town  gathered 
about  Mme.  Graslin,  others  were  not  sorry  to  take  brevet  rank 
as  wits  by  spending  their  evenings  in  her  society.  Veronique 
received  the  two  or  three  distinguished  military  men  stationed 
in  the  town  or  on  the  garrison  staff.  The  entire  freedom  of  dis- 
cussion enjoyed  by  her  visitors,  the  absolute  discretion  required 
of  them,  tacitly  and  by  the  adoption  of  the  manners  of  the 
best  society,  combined  to  make  Veronique  exclusive  and  very 
slow  to  admit  those  who  courted  the  honor  of  her  society  to 
her  circle.  Other  women  saw  not  without  jealousy  that  the 
cleverest  and  pleasantest  men  gathered  round  Mme.  Graslin, 
and  her  power  was  the  more  widely  felt  in  Limoges  because 
she  was  exclusive.  The  four  or  five  women  whom  she  accepted 
were  strangers  to  the  district,  who  had  accompanied  their 
husbands  from  Paris,  and  looked  on  provincial  tittle-tattle 
with  disgust.  If  some  one  chanced  to  call  who  did  not  belong 
to  the  inner  cefiacle,  the  conversation  underwent  an  immediate 
change,  and  with  one  accord  all  present  spoke  of  indifferent 
things. 

So  the  Hotel  Graslin  became  a  sort  of  oasis  in  the  desert 
where  a  chosen  few  sought  relief  in  each  other's  society  from 
the  tedium  of  provincial  life,  a  house  where  officials  might 
discuss  politics  and  speak  their  minds  without  fear  of  their 
opinions  being  reported,  where  all  things  worthy  of  mockery 
were  fair  game  for  wit  and  laughter,  where  every  one  laid  aside 
his  professional  uniform  to  give  his  natural  character  free  play. 


VERONIQUE.  49 

In  the  beginning  of  that  year  1828,  Mme.  Graslin,  whose 
girlhood  had  been  spent  in  the  most  complete  obscurity,  who 
had  been  pronounced  to  be  plain  and  stupid  and  a  complete 
nullity,  was  now  looked  upon  as  the  most  important  person 
in  the  town,  and  the  most  conspicuous  woman  in  society. 
No  one  called  upon  her  in  the  morning,  for  her  benevolence 
and  her  punctuality  in  the  performance  of  her  duties  of  relig- 
ion were  well  known.  She  almost  invariably  went  to  the  first 
mass,  returning  in  time  for  her  husband's  early  breakfast.  He 
was  the  most  unpunctual  of  men,  but  she  always  sat  with  him, 
for  Graslin  had  learned  to  expect  this  little  attention  from  his 
wife.  As  for  Graslin,  he  never  let  slip  an  opportunity  of 
praising  her;  he  thought  her  perfection.  She  never  asked 
him  for  money ;  he  was  free  to  pile  up  silver  crown  on  silver 
crown,  and  to  expand  his  field  of  operations.  He  had  opened 
an  account  with  the  firm  of  Brezac ;  he  had  set  sail  upon  a 
commercial  sea,  and  the  horizon  was  gradually  widening  out 
before  him  ;  his  over-stimulated  interest,  intent  upon  the  great 
events  of  the  green  table  called  very  superficially  Speculation, 
kept  him  perpetually  in  the  cold,  frenzied  intoxication  of  the 
gambler. 

During  this  happy  year,  and  indeed  until  the  beginning 
of  the  year  1829,  Mme.  Graslin's  friends  watched  a  strange 
change  passing  in  her,  under  their  eyes ;  her  beauty  became 
really  extraordinary,  but  the  reasons  of  the  change  were  never 
discovered.  Her  eyes  seemed  to  be  bathed  in  a  soft  liquid 
light,  full  of  tenderness,  the  blue  iris  widened  like  an  expand- 
ing flower  as  the  dark  pupils  contracted.  Memories  and  happy 
thoughts  seemed  to  light  up  her  brow,  which  grew  whiter, 
like  some  ridge  of  snow  in  the  dawn,  her  features  seemed  to 
regain  their  purity  of  outline  in  some  refining  fire  within. 
Her  face  lost  the  feverish  brown  color  which  threatens  inflam- 
mation of  the  liver,  the  malady  of  vigorous  temperaments  of 
troubled  minds  and  thwarted  affections.  Her  temples  grew 
adorably  fresh  and  youthful.  Frequently  her  friends  saw 
4 


50  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

glimpses  of  the  divinely  fair  face  which  a  Raphael  might  have 
painted,  the  face  which  disease  had  covered  with  an  ugly  film, 
such  as  time  spreads  over  the  canvas  of  the  great  master. 
Her  hands  looked  whiter,  there  was  a  delicate  fulness  in  the 
rounded  curves  of  her  shoulders,  and  her  quick  dainty  move- 
ments displayed  to  the  very  full  the  lissome  grace  of  her 
form. 

The  women  said  that  she  was  in  love  with  M.  de  Granville, 
who,  for  that  matter,  paid  assiduous  court  to  her,  though 
Veronique  raised  between  them  the  barriers  of  a  pious  resist- 
ance. The  deputy  public  prosecutor  professed  a  respectful 
admiration  for  her  which  did  not  impose  upon  frequenters  of 
her  house.  Clearer-sighted  observers  attributed  to  a  different 
cause  this  change,  which  made  Veronique  still  more  charming 
to  her  friends.  Any  woman,  however  devout,  could  not  but 
feel  in  her  inmost  soul  that  it  was  sweet  to  be  so  courted,  to 
know  the  satisfaction  of  living  in  a  congenial  atmosphere,  the 
delight  of  exchanging  ideas  (so  great  a  relief  in  a  tedious  life), 
the  pleasure  of  the  society  of  well-read  and  agreeable  men, 
and  of  sincere  friendships,  which  grew  day  by  day.  It  needed, 
perhaps,  an  observer  still  more  profound,  more  acute,  or  more 
suspicious  than  any  of  those  who  came  to  the  Hotel  Graslin  to 
divine  the  untamed  greatness,  the  strength  of  the  woman  of 
the  people  pent  up  in  the  depths  of  Veronique's  nature.  Now 
and  again  they  might  surprise  her  in  a  torpid  mood,  overcast 
by  gloomy  or  merely  pensive  musings,  but  all  her  friends 
knew  that  she  carried  many  troubles  in  her  heart ;  that,  doubt- 
less, in  the  morning  she  had  been  initiated  into  many  sorrows, 
that  she  penetrated  into  dark  places  where  vice  is  appalling 
by  reason  of  its  unblushing  front.  Not  seldom,  indeed,  the 
Vicomte,  soon  promoted  to  be  advocate-general,  scolded  her 
for  some  piece  of  blind  benevolence  discovered  by  him  in  the 
course  of  his  investigations.  Justice  complained  that  Charity 
had  paved  the  way  to  the  police  court. 

"  Do  you  want  money  for  some  of  your  poor  people?  "  old 


"do  you  want  money  for    some  of   your   POOR   PEOPLE?' 


I 


V&RONIQUE.  51 

Grossetete  had  asked  on  this,  as  he  took  her  hand  in  his.  "  I 
will  share  the  guilt  of  your  benefactions." 

"It  is  impossible  to  make  everybody  rich,"  she  answered, 
heaving  a  sigh. 

An  event  occurred  at  the  beginning  of  this  year  which  was 
to  change  the  whole  current  of  Veronique's  inner  life,  as  well 
as  the  wonderful  expression  of  her  face,  which  henceforward 
became  a  portrait  infinitely  more  interesting  to  a  painter's 
eyes. 

Graslin  grew  rather  fidgety  about  his  health,  and  to  his 
wife's  great  despair  left  his  ground-floor  quarters  and  returned 
to  her  apartment  to  be  tended.  Soon  afterwards  Mme.  Gras- 
lin's  condition  became  a  matter  of  town  gossip ;  she  was  about 
to  become  a  mother.  Her  evident  sadness,  mingled  with  joy, 
filled  her  friends'  thoughts ;  they  then  divined  that,  in  spite 
of  her  virtues,  she  was  happiest  when  she  lived  apart  from  her 
husband.  Perhaps  she  had  had  hopes  for  better  things  since 
the  day  when  theVicomte  de  Granville  had  declined  to  marry 
the  richest  heiress  in  Limousin,  and  still  continued  to  pay 
court  to  her.  Ever  since  that  event  the  profound  politicians 
who  exercise  the  censorship  of  sentiments,  and  settle  other 
people's  business  in  the  intervals  of  whist,  had  suspected  the 
lawyer  and  young  Mme.  Graslin  of  basing  hopes  of  their  own 
on  the  banker's  failing  health — hopes  which  were  brought  to 
nothing  by  this  unexpected  development.  It  was  a  time  in 
Veronique's  life  when  deep  distress  of  mind  was  added  to  the 
apprehensions  of  a  first  confinement,  always  more  perilous,  it 
is  said,  when  a  woman  is  past  her  first  youth,  but  all  through 
those  days  her  friends  showed  themselves  more  thoughtful  for 
her;  there  was  not  one  of  them  but  made  her  feel  in  innumer- 
able small  ways  what  warmth  there  was  in  these  friendships  of 
hers,  and  how  solid  they  had  become. 


II. 

TASCHERON. 

It  was  in  the  same  year  that  Limoges  witnessed  the  terrible 
spectacle  and  strange  tragedy  of  the  Tascheron  case,  in  which 
the  young  Vicomte  de  Granville  displayed  the  talents  which 
procured  him  the  appointment  of  public  prosecutor  at  a  later 
day. 

An  old  man  living  in  a  lonely  house  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Etienrie  was  murdered.  A  large  orchard 
isolates  the  dwelling  on  the  side  of  the  town,  on  the  other  there 
is  a  pleasure  garden,  with  a  row  of  unused  hothouses  at  the 
bottom  of  it ;  then  follow  the  open  fields.  The  bank  of  the 
Vienne  in  this  place  rises  up  very  steeply  from  the  river,  the 
little  front  garden  slopes  down  to  this  embankment,  and  is 
bounded  by  a  low  wall  surmounted  by  an  open  fence. 
Square  stone  posts  are  set  along  it  at  even  distances,  but  the 
painted  wooden  railings  are  there  more  by  way  of  ornament 
than  as  a  protection  to  the  property. 

The  old  man,  Pingret  by  name,  a  notorious  miser,  lived 
quite  alone  save  for  a  servant,  a  countrywoman  whom  he 
employed  in  the  garden.  He  trained  his  espaliers  and  pruned 
his  fruit  trees  himself,  gathering  his  crops  and  selling  them 
in  the  town,  and  excelled  in  growing  early  vegetables  for  the 
market.  The  old  man's  niece  and  sole  heiress,  who  had 
married  a  M.  des  Vanneaulx,  a  man  of  small  independent 
means,  and  lived  in  Limoges,  had  many  a  time  implored  her 
uncle  to  keep  a  man  as  protection  to  the  place,  pointing 
out  to  him  that  he  would  be  able  to  grow  more  garden 
produce  in  several  borders  planted  with  standard  fruit  trees 
beneath  which  he  now  sowed  millet  and  the  like;  but  it  was 
of  no  use,  the  old  man  would  not  hear  of  it.  This  contra- 
diction in  a  miser  gave  rise  to  all  sorts  of  conjectures  in  the 

houses    where    the    Vanneaulx    spent    their   evenings.      The 
(52) 


TASCHERON.  53 

most  divergent  opinions  had  more  than  once  divided  parties 
at  boston.  Some  knowing  folk  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
there  was  a  treasure  hidden  under  the  growing  luzern. 

"  If  I  were  in  Mme.  des  Vanneaulx's  place,"  remarked  one 
pleasant  gentleman,  "  I  would  not  worry  my  uncle,  I  know. 
If  somebody  murders  him,  well  and  good  ;  somebody  will 
murder  him.     I  should  come  in  for  the  property." 

Mme.  des  Vanneaulx,  however,  thought  differently.  As  a 
manager  at  the  Theatre-Italien  implores  the  tenor  who  "draws ' ' 
a  full  house  to  be  very  careful  to  wrap  up  his  throat,  and  gives 
him  his  cloak  when  the  singer  has  forgotten  his  overcoat,  so 
did  Mme.  des  Vanneaulx  try  to  watch  over  her  relative.  She 
had  offered  little  Pingret  a  magnificent  yard  dog,  but  the  old 
man  sent  the  animal  back  again  by  Jeanne  Malassis  his 
servant. 

"Your  uncle  has  no  mind  to  have  one  more  mouth  to  feed 
up  at  our  place,"  said  the  handmaid  to  Mme.  des  Vanneaulx. 

The  event  proved  that  his  niece's  fears  had  been  but  too 
well  founded.  Pingret  was  murdered  one  dark  night  in  the 
patch  of  luzern,  whither  he  had  gone,  no  doubt,  to  add  a  few 
louis  to  a  pot  full  of  gold.  The  servant,  awakened  by  the 
sounds  of  the  struggle,  had  the  courage  to  go  to  the  old  man's 
assistance,  and  the  murderer  found  himself  compelled  to  kill 
her  also,  lest  she  should  bear  witness  against  him.  This  cal- 
culation of  probable  risks,  which  nearly  always  prompts  a 
man  guilty  of  one  murder  to  add  another  to  his  account,  is 
one  unfortunate  result  of  the  capital  sentence  which  he  beholds 
looming  in  the  distance. 

The  double  crime  was  accompanied  by  strange  circum- 
stances, which  told  as  strongly  for  the  defense  as  for  the  prose- 
cution. When  the  neighbors  had  seen  nothing  of  Pingret  nor 
of  the  servant  for  the  whole  morning;  when,  as  they  came 
and  went,  they  looked  through  the  wooden  railings  and  saw 
that  the  doors  and  windows  (contrary  to  wont)  were  still 
barred  and  fastened,  the  thing   began  to  be  bruited  abroad 

P 


54  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

through  the  Faubourg  Saint-Etienne,  till  it  reached  Mme.  des 
Vanneaulx  in  the  Rue  des  Cloches.  Mme.  des  Vanneaulx, 
whose  mind  always  ran  on  horrors,  sent  for  the  police,  and  the 
doors  were  broken  open.  In  the  four  patches  of  luzern  there 
were  four  gaping  holes  in  the  earth,  surrounded  by  rubbish, 
and  strewn  with  broken  shards  of  the  pots  which  had  been 
full  of  gold  the  night  before.  In  two  of  the  holes,  which 
had  been  partly  filled  up,  they  found  the  bodies  of  old  Pingret 
and  Jeanne  Malassis,  buried  in  their  clothes ;  she,  poor  thing, 
had  run  out  barefooted  in  her  night-dress. 

While  the  public  prosecutor,  the  commissary,  and  the  exam- 
ining magistrate  took  down  all  these  particulars,  the  unlucky 
des  Vanneaulx  collected  the  scraps  of  broken  pottery,  put 
them  together,  and  calculated  the  amount  the  jars  should  have 
held.  The  authorities,  perceiving  the  common-sense  of  this 
proceeding,  estimated  the  stolen  treasure  at  a  thousand  pieces 
per  pot;  but  what  was  the  value  of  those  coins?  Had  they 
been  forty  or  forty-eight  franc  pieces,  twenty-four  or  twenty 
francs?  Every  creature  in  Limoges  who  had  expectations 
felt  for  the  des  Vanneaulx  in  this  trying  situation.  The  sight 
of  those  fragments  of  crockery-ware  which  once  held  gold 
gave  a  lively  stimulus  to  Limousin  imaginations.  As  for  little 
Pingret,  who  often  came  to  sell  his  vegetables  in  the  market 
himself,  who  lived  on  bread  and  onions,  and  did  not  spend 
three  hundred  francs  in  a  year,  who  never  did  anybody  a  good 
turn,  nor  any  harm  either,  no  one  regretted  him  in  the  least — 
he  had  never  done  a  pennyworth  of  good  to  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Etienne.  As  for  Jeanne  Malassis,  her  heroism  was  con- 
sidered to  be  ill-timed ;  the  old  man,  if  he  had  lived,  would 
have  grudged  her  reward;  altogether,  her  admirers  were  few 
compared  with  the  number  of  those  who  remarked,  "  I  should 
have  slept  soundly  in  her  place,  I  know  !  " 

Then  the  curious  and  the  next-of-kin  were  made  aware  of 
the  inconsistencies  of  certain  misers.     The  police,  when  they 


TASCHERON.  55 

came  to  draw  up  the  report,  could  find  neither  pen  nor  ink  in 
the  bare,  cold,  dismal,  tumble-down  house.  The  little  old 
man's  horror  of  expense  was  glaringly  evident :  in  the  great 
holes  in  the  roof,  which  let  in  rain  and  snow  as  well  as  light ; 
in  the  moss-covered  cracks  which  rent  the  walls ;  in  the  rotting 
doors  ready  to  drop  from  their  hinges  at  the  least  shock;  in  the 
unoiled  paper  which  did  duty  as  glass  in  the  windows.  There 
was  not  a  window  curtain  in  the  house,  not  a  looking-glass 
over  the  mantel-shelves;  the  grates  were  chiefly  remarkable 
for  the  absence  of  fire-irons  and  the  accumulation  of  damp 
soot,  a  sort  of  varnish  over  the  handful  of  sticks  or  the  log 
of  wood  which  lay  on  the  hearth.  And  as  to  the  furniture — 
a  few  crippled  chairs  and  maimed  armchairs,  two  beds,  hard 
and  attenuated  (Time  had  adorned  old  Pingret's  bed-curtains 
with  open-work  embroidery  of  a  bold  design),  one  or  two 
cracked  pots  and  riveted  plates,  a  worm-eaten  bureau,  where 
the  old  man  used  to  keep  his  garden  seeds,  household  linen 
thick  with  darns  and  patches — the  furniture,  in  short,  con- 
sisted of  a  mass  of  rags,  which  had  only  a  sort  of  life  kept  in 
them  by  the  spirit  of  their  owner,  and  now  that  he  was  gone, 
they  dropped  to  pieces  and  crumbled  to  powder.  At  the 
first  touch  of  the  brutal  hands  of  the  police  officers  and 
infuriated  next-of-kin  they  evaporated,  heaven  knows  how, 
and  came  to  nameless  ruin  and  an  indefinable  end.  They 
were  not.  Before  the  terrors  of  a  public  auction  they  vanished 
away. 

For  a  long  time  the  greater  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
capital  of  Limousin  continued  to  take  an  interest  in  the  hard 
case  of  the  worthy  des  Vanneaulx,  who  had  two  children ; 
but  as  soon  as  justice  appeared  to  have  discovered  the  perpe- 
trator of  the  crime,  this  person  absorbed  all  their  attention, 
he  became  the  hero  of  the  day,  and  the  des  Vanneaulx  were 
relegated  to  the  obscurity  of  the  background. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  .month  of  March,  Mine.  Graslin 
had  already  felt  the  discomforts  incidental  to  her  condition, 


56  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

which  could  no  longer  be  concealed.  By  that  time  inquiries 
were  being  made  into  the  crime  committed  in  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Etienne,  but  the  murderer  was  still  at  large.  Veronique 
received  visitors  in  her  bedroom,  whither  her  friends  came  for 
their  game  of  whist.  A  few  days  later  Mme.  Graslin  kept 
her  room  altogether.  More  than  once  already  she  had  been 
seized  with  the  unaccountable  fancies  commonly  attributed  to 
women  with  child.  Her  mother  came  almost  every  day  to 
see  her;  the  two  spent  whole  hours  in  each  other's  society. 

It  was  nine  o'clock.  The  card-tables  were  neglected,  every 
one  was  talking  about  the  murder  and  the  des  Vanneaulx, 
when  the  Vicomte  de  Granville  came  in. 

"We  have  caught  the  man  who  murdered  old  Pingret !  " 
he  cried  in  high  glee. 

"  And  who  is  it  ?  "     The  question  came  from  all  sides. 

"  One  of  the  workmen  in  a  porcelain  factory,  a  man  of 
exemplary  conduct,  and  in  a  fair  way  to  make  his  fortune. 
He  is  one  of  your  husband's  old  workmen,"  he  added,  turn- 
ing to  Mme.  Graslin. 

"  Who  is  it  ?  "  Veronique  asked  faintly. 

"Jean-Francois  Tascheron." 

"The  unfortunate  man!"  she  exclaimed.  "Yes.  1  re- 
member seeing  him  several  times.  My  poor  father  recom- 
mended him  to  me  as  a  valuable  hand " 

"He  left  the  place  before  Sauviat  died,"  remarked  old 
Mme.  Sauviat;  "he  went  over  to  the  MM.  Philippart  to 
better  himself.  But  is  my  daughter  well  enough  to  hear 
about  this?,"  she  added,  looking  at  Mme.  Graslin,  who  was 
as  white  as  the  sheets. 

After  that  evening  old  Mother  Sauviat  left  her  house,  and 
in  spite  of  her  seventy  years,  installed  herself  as  her  daugh- 
ter's nurse.  She  did  not  leave  Veronique's  room.  No  matter 
at  what  hour  Mme.  Graslin's  friends  called  to  see  her,  they 
found  the  old  mother  sitting  heroically  at  her  post  by  the  bed- 


TASCHERON.  57 

side,  busied  with  her  eternal  knitting,  brooding  over  her 
V6ronique  as  in  the  days  of  the  smallpox,  answering  for  her 
child,  and  sometimes  denying  her  to  visitors.  The  love 
between  the  mother  and  daughter  was  so  well  known  in 
Limoges  that  people  took  the  old  woman's  ways  as  a  matter 
of  course. 

A  few  days  later,  when  the  Vicomte  de  Granville  began  to 
give  some  of  the  details  of  the  Tascheron  case,  in  which  the 
whole  town  took  an  eager  interest,  thinking  to  interest  the 
invalid,  La  Sauviat  cut  him  short  by  asking  if  he  meant  to 
give  Mme.  Graslin  bad  dreams  again,  but  Veronique  begged 
M.  de  Granville  to  go  on,  fixing  her  eyes  on  his  face.  So  it 
fell  out  that  Mme.  Graslin' s  friends  heard  in  her  house  the 
result  of  the  preliminary  examination,  soon  afterwards  made 
public,  at  first-hand  from  the  avocat  general.  Here,  in  a  con- 
densed form,  is  the  substance  of  the  indictment  which  was 
being  drawn  up  by  the  prosecution  : 

Jean-Francois  Tascheron  was  the  son  of  a  small  farmer 
burdened  with  a  large  family,  who  lived  in  the  township 
of  Montegnac.  Twenty  years  before  the  perpetration  of 
this  crime,  whose  memory  still  lingers  in  Limousin,  Canton 
Montegnac  bore  a  notoriously  bad  character.  It  was  alleged 
in  the  criminal  court  of  Limoges  that  fifty  out  of  every 
hundred  convictions  came  from  the  Montegnac  district. 
Since  1816,  two  years  after  the  arrival  of  the  new  cure, 
M.  Bonnet,  Montegnac  lost  its  old  reputation,  and  no  longer 
sent  up  its  contingent  to  the  assizes.  The  change  was  gen- 
erally set  down  to  M.  Bonnet's  influence  in  the  commune, 
which  had  once  been  a  perfect  hotbed  of  bad  characters  who 
gave  trouble  in  all  the  country  round  about.  Jean-Francois 
Tascheron's  crime  suddenly  restored  Montegnac  to  its  former 
unenviable  pre-eminence.  It  happened,  singularly  enough, 
that  the  Tascherons  had  been  almost  the  only  family  in  the 
countryside  which  had  not  departed  from  the  old  exemplary 


58  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

traditions  and  religious  habits  now  fast  dying  out  in  country 
places.  In  them  the  cure  had  found  a  moral  support  and 
basis  of  operations,  and  naturally  he  thought  a  great  deal  of 
them.  The  whole  family  were  hard  workers,  remarkable  for 
their  honesty  and  the  strong  affection  that  bound  them  to  each 
other ;  Jean-Francois  Tascheron  had  had  none  but  good  ex- 
amples set  before  him  at  home.  A  praiseworthy  ambition  had 
brought  him  to  Limoges.  He  meant  to  make  a  little  fortune 
honestly  by  a  handicraft,  and  left  the  township,  to  the  regret 
of  his  relations  and  friends,  who  were,  very  much  attached  to 
him. 

His  conduct  during  his  two  years  of  apprenticeship  was 
admirable  ;  apparently  no  irregularity  in  his  life  had  foreshad- 
owed the  hideous  crime  for  which  he  forfeited  his  life.  The 
leisure  which  other  workmen  wasted  in  the  wineshop  and 
debauches,  Tascheron  spent  in  study. 

Justice  in  the  provinces  has  plenty  of  time  on  her  hands, 
but  the  most  minute  investigation  threw  no  light  whatever  on 
the  secrets  of  his  existence.  The  landlady  of  Jean  Francois* 
humble  lodging,  skillfully  questioned,  said  that  she  had  never 
had  such  a  steady  young  man  as  a  lodger.  He  was  pleasant- 
spoken  and  good-tempered,  almost  gay,  as  you  might  say. 
About  a  year  ago  a  change  seemed  to  come  over  him.  He 
would  stop  out  all  night  several  times  a  month,  and  often  for 
several  nights  at  a  time.  She  did  not  know  whereabouts  in 
the  town  he  spent  those  nights.  Still,  she  had  sometimes 
thought,  judging  by  the  mud  on  his  boots,  that  her  lodger 
had  been  somewhere  out  in  the  country.  He  used  to  wear 
pumps,  too,  instead  of  hobnailed  boots,  although  he  was 
going  out  of  the  town,  and  before  he  went  he  used  to  shave 
and  scent  himself,  and  put  on  clean  clothes. 

The  examining  magistrate  carried  his  investigation  to  such 
a  length  that  inquiries  were  made  in  houses  of  ill-fame  and 
among  licensed  prostitutes,  but  no  one  knew  anything  of 
Jean-Francois  Tascheron ;   other  inquiries  made  among  the 


TASCHERQN,  S9 

class  of  factory  operatives  and  shop-girls  met  with  no  better 
success ;  none  of  those  whose  conduct  was  light  had  any  rela- 
tions with  the  accused. 

A  crime  without  any  motive  whatever  is  inconceivable, 
especially  when  the  criminal's  bent  was  apparently  towards 
self-improvement,  while  his  ambitions  argued  higher  ideals 
and  sense  superior  to  that  of  other  workmen.  The  whole 
criminal  department,  like  the  examining  magistrate,  were  fain 
to  find  a  motive  for  the  murder  in  a  passion  for  play  on  Tas- 
cheron's  part ;  but  after  minute  investigation,  it  was  proved 
that  the  accused  had  never  gambled  in  his  life. 

From  the  very  first  Jean-Francois  took  refuge  in  a  system 
of  denial  which  could  not  but  break  down  in  the  face  of 
circumstantial  evidence  when  his  case  should  come  before  a 
jury  ;  but  his  manner  of  defending  himself  suggested  the 
intervention  of  some  person  well  acquainted  with  the  law,  or 
gifted  with  no  ordinary  intelligence.  The  evidence  of  his 
guilt,  as  in  most  similar  cases,  was  at  once  unconvincing  and 
yet  too  strong  to  be  set  aside.  The  principal  points  which 
told  against  Tascheron  were  four — his  absence  from  home  on 
the  night  of  the  murder  (he  would  not  say  where  he  spent 
that  night,  and  scorned  to  invent  an  alibi)  ;  a  shred  of  his 
blouse,  torn  without  his  knowledge  during  the  struggle  with 
the  poor  servant-girl,  and  blown  by  the  wind  into  the  tree 
where  it  was  found ;  the  fact  that  he  had  been  seen  hanging 
about  the  house  that  evening  by  people  in  the  suburb,  who 
would  not  have  remembered  this  but  for  the  crime  which 
followed  ;  and,  lastly,  a  false  key  which  he  had  made  to  fit  the 
lock  of  the  garden-gate,  which  was  entered  from  the  fields. 
It  had  been  hidden  rather  ingeniously  in  one  of  the  holes, 
some  two  feet  below  the  surface.  M.  des  Vanneaulx  had 
come  upon  it  while  digging  to  see  whether  by  chance  there 
might  be  a  second  hoard  beneath  the  first.  The  police  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  out  the  man  who  supplied  the  steel,  the 
vise,  and  the  key-file.     This  had  been  their  first  clue,  it  put 


60  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

them  on  Tascheron's  track,  and  finally  they  arrested  him  on 
the  limits  of  the  department  in  a  woods  where  he  was  waiting 
for  the  diligence.  An  hour  later,  and  he  would  have  been  on 
his  way  to  America.  Moreover,  in  spite  of  the  care  with 
which  the  footprints  had  been  erased  in  the  trampled  earth 
and  on  the  muddy  road,  the  rural  policeman  had  found  the 
marks  of  thin  shoes,  clear  and  unmistakable,  in  the  soil. 
Tascheron's  lodgings  were  searched,  and  a  pair  of  pumps 
were  found  which  exactly  corresponded  with  the  impress,  a 
fatal  coincidence  which  confirmed  the  curious  observations 
of  his  landlady. 

Then  the  criminal  investigation  department  saw  another 
influence  at  work  in  the  crime,  and  a  second  and  perhaps  a 
prime  mover  in  the  case.  Tascheron  must  have  had  an 
accomplice,  if  only  for  the  reason  that  it  was  impossible  for 
one  man  to  take  away  such  a  weight  of  coin.  No  man,  how- 
ever strong,  could  carry  twenty-five  thousand  francs  in  gold 
very  far.  If  each  of  the  pots  had  held  so  much,  he  must 
have  made  four  journeys.  Now,  a  singular  accident  deter- 
mined the  very  hour  when  the  deed  was  done.  Jeanne 
Malassis,  springing  out  of  bed  in  terror  at  her  master's 
shrieks,  had  overturned  the  table  on  which  her  watch  lay 
(the  one  present  which  the  miser  had  made  her  in  five  years). 
The  fall  had  broken  the  mainspring,  and  stopped  the  hands 
at  two  o'clock. 

In  mid-March,  the  time  of  the  murder,  the  sun  rises  be- 
tween five  and  six  in  the  morning.  So  on  the  hypothesis 
traced  out  by  the  police  and  the  department,  it  was  clearly 
impossible  that  Tascheron  should  have  carried  off  the  money 
unaided  and  alone,  even  for  a  short  distance,  in  the  time. 
The  evident  pains  which  the  man  had  taken  to  erase  other 
footprints  to  the  neglect  of  his  own,  also  indicated  an  un- 
known assistant. 

Justice,  driven  to  invent  some  reason  for  the  crime,  decided 
on  a  frantic  passion  for  some  woman,  and,  as  she  was  not  to 


TASCHERON.  61 

be  found  among  the  lower  classes,  forensic  sagacity  looked 
higher.  , 

Could  it  be  some  woman  of  the  bourgeoisie  who,  feeling 
sure  of  the  discretion  of  a  lover  of  so  puritanical  a  cut,  had 
read  with  him  the  opening  chapters  of  a  romance  which  had 
ended  in  this  ugly  tragedy  ?  There  were  circumstances  in 
the  case  which  almost  bore  out  this  theory.  The  old  man 
had  been  killed  by  blows  from  a  spade.  The  murder,  it 
seemed,  was  the  result  of  chance,  a  sudden  fortuitous  develop- 
ment, and  not  a  part  of  a  deliberate  plan.  The  two  lovers 
might,  perhaps,  have  concerted  the  theft,  but  not  the  second 
crime.  Then  Tascheron  the  lover  and  Pingret  the  miser  had 
crossed  each  other's  paths,  and  in  the  thick  darkness  of 
night  two  inexorable  passions  met  on  the  same  spot,  both 
attracted  thither  by  gold. 

Justice  devised  a  new  plan  for  obtaining  light  on  these  dark 
facts.  Jean-Francois  had  a  favorite  sister ;  her  they  arrested 
and  examined  privately,  hoping  in  this  way  to  come  by  a 
knowledge  of  the  mysteries  of  her  brother's  private  life. 
Denise  Tascheron  denied  all  knowledge  of  his  affairs ;  pru- 
dence dictating  a  system  of  negative  answers  which  led  her 
questioners  to  suspect  that  she  really  knew  the  reasons  of  the 
crime.  Denise  Tascheron,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  knew  nothing 
whatever  about  it,  but  for  the  rest  of  her  days  she  was  to  be 
under  a  cloud  in  consequence  of  her  detention. 

The  accused  showed  a  spirit  very  unusual  in  a  workingman. 
He  was  too  clever  for  the  cleverest  "  sheep  of  the  prisons" 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact — though  he  did  not  discover 
that  he  had  to  do  with  a  spy.  The  keener  intelligences 
among  the  magistracy  saw  in  him  a  murderer  through  passion, 
not  through  necessity,  like  the  common  herd  of  criminals 
who  pass  by  way  of  the  petty  sessions  and  the  hulks  to  a 
capital  charge.  He  was  shrewdly  plied  with  questions  put 
with  this  idea;  but  the  man's  wonderful  discretion  left  the 
magistrates  much  where  they  were  before.     The  romantic  but 


62  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

plausible  theory  of  a  passion  for  a  woman  of  higher  rank,  once 
admitted,  insidious  questions  were  suddenly  asked  more  than 
once;  but  Jean-Francois  discretion  issued  victorious  from  all 
the  mental  tortures  which  the  ingenuity  of  an  examining  mag- 
istrate could  inflict. 

As  a  final  expedient,  Tascheron  was  told  that  the  person 
for  whom  he  had  committed  the  crime  had  been  discovered 
and  arrested ;  but  his  face  underwent  no  change,  he  contented 
himself  with  the  ironical  retort,  "  I  should  be  very  glad  to  see 
that  person." 

When  these  details  became  known,  there  were  plenty  of 
people  who  shared  the  magistrate's  suspicions,  confirmed  to 
all  appearance  by  the  behavior  of  the  accused,  who  main- 
tained the  silence  of  a  savage.  An  all-absorbing  interest 
attached  to  a  young  man  who  had  come  to  be  a  problem. 
Every  one  will  understand  how  the  public  curiosity  was  stimu- 
lated by  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  how  eagerly  reports  of  the 
examination  were  followed  ;  for,  in  spite  of  all  the  probings 
of  the  police,  the  case  for  the  prosecution  remained  on  the 
brink  of  a  mystery,  which  the  authorities  did  not  dare  to 
penetrate,  beset  with  dangers  as  it  was.  In  some  cases  a  half- 
certainty  is  not  enough  for  the  magistracy.  So  it  was  hoped 
that  the  buried  truth  would  arise  and  come  to  light  at  the 
great  day  of  the  assizes,  an  occasion  when  criminals  fre- 
quently lose  their  heads. 

It  happened  that  M.  Graslin  was  on  the  jury  empaneled  for 
the  occasion,  and  Veronique  could  not  but  hear  through  him 
or  through  M.  de  Granville  the  whole  story  of  a  trial  which 
kept  Limousin,  and  indeed  all  France,  in  excitement  for  a 
fortnight.  The  behavior  of  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  justified 
the  romances  founded  on  the  conjectures  of  justice  which 
were  current  in  the  town;  more  than  once  his  eyes  were 
turned  searchingly  on  the  bevy  of  women  privileged  to  enjoy 
the  spectacle  of  a  sensational  drama  in  real  life.  Every  time 
that  the  clear  impenetrable  gaze  was  turned  on  the  fashionable 


TASCHERON.  63 

audience,  it  produced  a  flutter  of  consternation,  so  greatly 
did  every  woman  fear  lest  she  might  seem  to  inquisitive  eyes 
in  the  court  to  be  the  prisoner's  partner  in  guilt. 

The  useless  efforts  of  the  criminal  investigation  department 
were  then  made  public,  and  Limoges  was  informed  of  the  pre- 
cautions taken  by  the  accused  to  ensure  the  complete  success 
of  his  crime. 

Some  months  before  that  fatal  night,  Jean-Francois  had  pro- 
cured a  passport  for  North  America.  Clearly  he  had  meant 
to  leave  France.  Clearly,  therefore,  the  woman  in  the  case 
must  be  married  ;  for  there  was,  of  course,  no  object  to  be 
gained  by  eloping  with  a  young  girl.  Perhaps  it  was  a  desire 
to  maintain  the  fair  unknown  in  luxury  which  had  prompted 
the  crime ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  a  search  through  the  regis- 
ters of  the  administration  had  discovered  that  no  passport  for 
that  country  had  been  made. out  in  a  woman's  name.  The 
police  had  even  investigated  the  registers  in  Paris  as  well  as 
those  of  the  neighboring  perfectures,  but*  fruitlessly. 

As  the  case  proceeded,  every  least  detail  brought  to  light 
revealed  profound  forethought  on  the  part  of  a  man  of  no 
ordinary  intelligence.  While  the  most  virtuous  ladies  of 
Limousin  explained  the  sufficiently  inexplicable  use  of  even- 
ing shoes  for  a  country  excursion  on  muddy  roads  and  heavy 
soil,  by  the  plea  that  it  was  necessary  to  spy  upon  old  Pingret ; 
the  least  coxcombically  given  of  men  were  delighted  to  point 
out  how  eminently  a  pair  of  thin  pumps  favored  noiseless 
movements  about  a  house,  scaling  windows,  and  stealing  along 
corridors. 

Evidently  Jean-Francois  Tascheron  and  his  mistress,  a 
young,  romantic,  and  beautiful  woman  (for  every  one  drew 
a  superb  portrait  of  the  lady),  had  contemplated  forgery,  and 
the  words  "  and  wife  "  were  to  be  filled  in  after  his  name  on 
the  passport. 

Card-parties  were  broken  up  during  these  evenings  by  mali- 
cious conjectures  and  comments.     People  began  to  cast  about 


64  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

for  the  names  of  women  who  went  to  Paris  during  March, 
1829 ;  or  of  others  who  might  be  supposed  to  have  made  pre- 
parations openly  or  secretly  for  flight.  The  trial  supplied 
Limoges  with  a  second  Fualdes  case,  with  an  unknown  Mme. 
Manson  by  way  of  improvement  on  the  first.  Never,  indeed, 
was  any  country  town  so  puzzled  as  Limoges  after  the  court 
rose  each  day.  People's  very  dreams  turned  on  the  trial. 
Everything  that  transpired  raised  the  accused  in  their  eyes; 
his  answers,  skillfully  turned  over  and  over,  expanded  and 
edited,  supplied  a  theme  for  endless  argument.  One  of  the 
jury  asked,  for  instance,  why  Tascheron  had  taken  a  passport 
for  America,  to  which  the  prisoner  replied  that  he  meant  to 
open  a  porcelain  factory  there.  In  this  way  he  screened  his 
accomplice  without  quitting  his  line  of  defense,  and  supplied 
conjecture  with  a  plausible  and  sufficient  motive  for  the  crime 
in  this  ambition  of  his. 

In  the  thick  of  these  disputes,  it  was  impossible  that  Veron- 
ique's  friends  should  not  also  try  to  account  for  Tascheron's 
close  reserve.  One  evening  she  seemed  better  than  usual. 
The  doctor  had  prescribed  exercise ;  and  that  very  morning 
Veronique,  leaning  on  her  mother's  arm,  had  walked  out  as 
far  as  Mme.  Sauviat's  cottage,  and  rested  there  a  while.  When 
she  came  home  again,  she  tried  to  sit  up  until  her  husband 
returned,  but  Graslin  was  late,  and  did  not  come  back  from 
the  court  till  eight  o'clock;  his  wife  waited  on  him  at  din- 
ner after  her  usual  custom,  and  in  this  way  she  could  not 
help  but  hear  the  discussion  between  her  husband  and  his 
friends. 

"  We  should  have  known  more  about  this  if  my  poor  father 
were  still  alive,"  said  Veronique,  "  or  perhaps  the  man  would 

not  have  committed  the  crime But  I  notice   that  you 

have  all  of  you  taken  one  strange  notion  into  your  heads  ! 
You  will  have  it  that  there  is  a  woman  at  the  bottom  of  this 
business  (as  far  as  that  goes  I  myself  am  of  your  opinion),  but 
why  do  you  think  that  she  is  a  married  woman  ?    Why  cannot 


TASCHERON.  65 

he  have  loved  some  girl  whose  father  and  mother  refused  to 
listen  to  him?" 

"  Sooner  or  later  a  young  girl  might  have  been  legitimately 
his,"  returned  M.  de  Granville.  "  Tascheron  is  not  wanting 
in  patience ;  he  would  have  had  time  to  make  an  independ- 
ence honestly ;  he  could  have  waited  until  the  girl  was  old 
enough  to  marry  without  her  parents'  consent." 

"  I  did  not  know  that  such  a  marriage  was  possible,"  said 
Mme.  Graslin.  "  Then  how  is  it  that  no  one  had  the  least 
suspicion  of  it,  here  in  a  place  where  everybody  knows  the 
affairs  of  everybody  else,  and  sees  all  that  goes  on  in  his 
neighbor's  house  ?  Two  people  cannot  fall  in  love  without 
at  any  rate  seeing  each  other  or  being  seen  of  each  other ! 
What  do  you  lawyers  think?"  she  continued,  looking  the 
avocat  general  full  in  the  eyes. 

"We  all  think  that  the  woman  must  be  the  wife  of  some 
tradesman,  a  man  in  business." 

"I  am  of  a  totally  opposite  opinion,"  said  Mme.  Graslin. 
"That  kind  of  woman  has  not  sentiments  sufficiently  lofty," 
a  retort  which  drew  all  eyes  upon  her.  Every  one  waited  for 
the  explanation  of  the  paradox. 

"At  night,"  she  said,  "when  I  do  not  sleep,  or  when  I 
lie  in  bed  in  the  daytime,  I  cannot  help  thinking  over  this 
mysterious  business,  and  I  believe  I  can  guess  Tascheron's 
motives.  These  are  my  reasons  for  thinking  that  it  is  a  girl, 
and  not  a  woman  in  the  case.  A  married  woman  has  other 
interests,  if  not  other  feelings  ;  she  has  a  divided  heart  in 
her,  she  cannot  rise  to  the  full  height  of  the  exaltation  in- 
spired by  a  love  so  passionate  as  this.  She  must  never  have 
borne  a  child  if  she  is  to  conceive  a  love  in  which  maternal 
instincts  are  blended  with  those  which  spring  from  desire. 
It  is  quite  clear  that  some  woman  who  wished  to  be  a  sustain- 
ing power  to  him  has  loved  this  man.  That  unknown  woman 
must  have  brought  to  her  love  the  genius  which  inspires  artists 
and  poets,  aye,  and  women  also,  but  in  another  form,  for  it 
5 


66  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

is  a  woman's  destiny  to  create,  not  things,  but  men.  Our 
creations  are  our  children,  our  children  are  our  pictures,  our 
books  and  statues.  Are  we  not  artists  when  we  shape  their 
lives  from  the  first  ?  So  I  am  sure  that  if  she  is  not  a  girl, 
she  is  not  a  mother;  I  would  stake  my  head  upon  it.  Law- 
yers should  have  a  woman's  instinct  to  apprehend  the  infinite 
subtle  touches  which  continually  escape  them  in  so  many 
cases. 

"If  I  had  been  your  substitute,"  she  continued,  turning 
to  M.  de  Granville,  "we  should  have  discovered  the  guilty 
woman,  always  supposing  that  she  is  guilty.  I  think,  with 
M.  l'Abbe  Dutheil,  that  the  two  lovers  had  planned  to  go  to 
America,  and  to  live  there  on  poor  Pingret's  money,  as  they 
had  none  of  their  own.  The  theft,  of  course,  led  to  the 
murder,  the  usual  fatal  consequence  of  the  fear  of  detec- 
tion and  death.  And  it  would  be  worthy  of  you,"  she 
added,  with  a  suppliant  glance  at  the  young  lawyer,  "  to 
withdraw  the  charge  of  malice  aforethought ;  you  would  save 
the  miserable  man's  life.  He  is  so  great  in  spite  of  his  crime, 
that  he  would  perhaps  expiate  his  sins  by  some  magnificent 
repentance.  The  works  of  repentance  should  be  taken  into 
account  in  the  deliberations  of  justice.  In  these  days  there 
are  no  better  ways  of  atoning  an  offense  than  by  the  loss  of 
a  head,  or  by  founding,  as  in  olden  times,  a  Milan  cathe- 
dral?" 

"Madame,  your  ideas  are  sublime,"  returned  the  lawyer; 
"but  if  the  averment  of  malice  aforethought  were  withdrawn, 
Tascheron  would  still  be  tried  for  his  life  ;  and  it  is  a  case  of 
aggravated  theft,  it  was  committed  at  night,  the  walls  were 
scaled,  the  premises  broken  into " 

"Then,  do  you  think  he  will  be  condemned?"  she  asked, 
lowering  her  eyelids. 

"  I  do  not  doubt  it.     The  prosecution  has  the  best  of  it." 

A  light  shudder  ran  through  Mme.  Graslin.  Her  dress 
rustled. 


TASCHERON.  67 

"I  feel  cold,"  she  said/ 

She  took  her  mother's  arm  and  went  to  bed. 

"  She  is  much  better  to-day,"  said  her  friends. 

The  next  morning  Veronique  was  at  death's  door.  She 
smiled  at  her  doctor's  surprise  at  finding  her  in  an  almost 
dying  state. 

"  Did  I  not  tell  you  that  the  walk  would  do  me  no  good  ?  " 
she  said. 

Ever  since  the  opening  of  the  trial  there  had  been  no  trace 
of  either  swagger  or  hypocrisy  in  Tascheron's  attitude.  The 
doctor,  always  with  a  view  to  diverting  his  patient's  mind, 
tried  to  explain  this  attitude  out  of  which  the  counsel  for  the 
defense  made  capital  for  his  client.  The  counsel's  cleverness, 
the  doctor  opined,  had  dazzled  the  accused,  who  imagined 
that  he  should  escape  the  capital  sentence.  Now  and  then  an 
expression  crossed  his  face  which  spoke  plainly  of  hopes  of 
some  coming  happiness  greater  than  mere  acquittal  or  reprieve. 
The  whole  previous  life  of  this  man  of  twenty-three  was  such 
a  flat  contradiction  to  the  deeds  which  brought  it  to  a  close 
that  his  champions  put  forward  his  behavior  as  a  conclusive 
argument.  In  fact,  the  clues  spun  by  the  police  into  a  stout 
hypothesis  fit  to  hang  a  man  dwindled  so  pitiably  when  woven 
into  the  romance  of  the  defense,  that  the  prisoner's  counsel 
fought  for  his  client's  life  with  some  prospect  of  success.  To 
save  him  he  shifted  the  ground  of  the  combat,  and  fought  the 
battle  out  on  the  question  of  malice  aforethought.  It  was 
admitted,  without  prejudice,  that  the  robbery  had  been 
planned  beforehand,  but  contended  that  the  double  murder 
had  been  the  result  of  an  unexpected  resistance  in  both  cases. 
The  issue  looked  doubtful ;  neither  side  had  made  good  their 
case. 

When  the  doctor  went,  the  avocat  general  came  in  as  usual 
to  see  Veronique  before  he  went  to  the  court. 

"  I  have  read  the  counsel's  speeches  yesterday,"  she  told 


68  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

him.  "  To-day  the  other  side  will  reply.  I  am  so  very  much 
interested  in  the  prisoner  that  I  should  like  him  to  be  saved. 
Could  you  not  forego  a  triumph  for  once  in  your  life?  Let 
the  counsel  for  the  defense  gain  the  day.  Come,  make  me  a 
present  of  this  life,  and— perhaps— some  day  mine  shall  be 

yours There  is  a  doubt  after  that  fine  speech  of  Tasche- 

ron's  counsel;  well,  then,  why  not " 

' '  Your  voice  is  quivering "  said  the  Vicomte,  almost 

taken  by  surprise. 

"  Do  you  know  why  ?  "  she  asked.  "  My  husband  has  just 
pointed  out  a  coincidence — hideous  for  a  sensitive  nature  like 
mine — a  thing  that  is  likely  to  cause  me  my  death.  You  will 
give  the  order  for  his  head  to  fall  just  about  the  time  when 
my  child  will  be  born." 

"  Can  I  reform  the  Code?"  asked  the  public  prosecutor. 

"There,  go!  You  do  not  know  how  to  love!"  she 
answered,  and  closed  her  eyes. 

She  lay  back  on  her  pillow,  and  dismissed  the  lawyer  with 
an  imperative  gesture. 

M.  Graslin  pleaded  hard,  but  in  vain,  for  an  acquittal,  ad- 
vancing an  argument,  first  suggested  to  him  by  his  wife,  and 
taken  up  by  two  of  his  friends  on  the  jury :  "  If  we  spare  the 
man's  life,  the  des  Vanneaulx  will  recover  Pingret's  money." 
This  irresistible  argument  told  upon  the  jury,  and  divided 
them — seven  for  acquittal  as  against  five.  As  they  failed  to 
agree,  the  president  and  assessors  were  obliged  to  add  their 
suffrages,  and  they  were  on  the  side  of  the  minority.  Jean- 
Francois  Tascheron  was  found  guilty  of  murder. 

When  sentence  was  passed,  Tascheron  burst  into  a  blind 
fury,  natural  enough  in  a  man  full  of  strength  and  life,  but 
seldom  seen  in  court  when  it  is  an  innocent  man  who  is  con- 
demned. It  seemed  to  every  one  who  saw  it  that  the  drama 
was  not  brought  to  an  end  by  the  sentence.  So  obstinate  a 
struggle  (as  often  happens  in  such  cases)  gave  rise  to  two 
diametrically  opposite  opinions  as  to  the  guilt  of  the  central 


TASCHERON.  69 

figure  in  it.  Some  saw  oppressed  innocence  in  him,  others  a 
criminal  justly  punished.  The  Liberal  party  felt  it  incumbent 
upon  them  to  believe  in  Tascheron's  innocence;  it  was  not 
so  much  conviction  on  their  part  as  a  desire  to  annoy  those  in 
office. 

"What?"  cried  they.  "Is  a  man  to  be  condemned  be- 
cause his  foot  happens  to  suit  the  size  of  a  footmark  ?  Be- 
cause, forsooth,  he  was  not  at  his  lodgings  at  the  time?  (As 
if  any  young  fellow  would  not  die  sooner  than  compromise  a 
woman!)  Because  he  borrowed  tools  and  bought  steel? — 
(for  it  has  not  been  proved  that  he  made  the  key).  Because 
some  one  finds  a  blue  rag  in  a  tree,  where  old  Pingret  very 
likely  put  it  himself  to  scare  the  sparrows,  and  it  happens  to 
match  a  slit  made  in  the  blouse?  Take  a  man's  life  on  such 
grounds  as  these  !  And,  after  all,  Jean-Francois  has  denied 
every  charge,  and  the  prosecution  did  not  produce  any  wit- 
ness who  had  seen  him  commit  the  crime." 

Then  they  fell  to  corroborating,  amplifying,  and  paraphras- 
ing the  speeches  made  by  the  prisoner's  counsel  and  his  line 
of  defense.  As  for  Pingret ;  what  was  Pingret  ?  A  money- 
box which  had  been  broken  open  ;  so  said  the  freethinkers. 

A  few  so-called  Progressives,  who  did  not  recognize  the 
sacred  laws  of  property  (which  the  Saint-Simon ians  had 
already  attacked  in  the  abstract  region  of  economical  theory), 
went  further  still. 

"Old  Pingret,"  said  these,  "  was  the  prime  author  of  the 
crime.  The  man  was  robbing  his  country  by  hoarding  the 
gold.  What  a  lot  of  businesses  that  idle  capital  might  have 
fertilized !  He  had  thwarted  industry ;  he  was  properly 
punished." 

As  for  the  servant-girl,  they  were  sorry  for  her ;  and 
Denise,  who  had  baffled  the  ingenuity  of  the  lawyers,  the  girl 
who  never  opened  her  mouth  at  the  trial  without  long  ponder- 
ing over  what  she  meant  to  say,  excited  the  keenest  interest. 
She  became  a  figure  comparable,  in  another  sense,  with  Jeanie 


70  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Deans,  whom  she  resembled  in  charm  of  character,  modesty, 
in  her  religious  nature  and  personal  comeliness.  So  Francois 
Tascheron  still  continued  to  excite  the  curiosity  not  merely  of 
Limoges,  but  of  the  whole  department.  Some  romantic 
women  openly  expressed  their  admiration  of  him. 

"  If  there  is  a  love  for  some  woman  about  him  at  the 
bottom  of  all  this,"  said  these  ladies,  "  the  man  is  certainly 
no  ordinary  man.     You  will  see  that  he  will  die  bravely  !  '■ 

Would  he  confess?  Would  he  keep  silence?  Bets  were 
taken  on  the  question.  Since  that  outburst  of  rage  with 
which  he  received  his  doom  (an  outburst  which  might  have 
had  a  fatal  ending  for  several  persons  in  court  but  for  the 
intervention  of  the  police),  the  criminal  threatened  violence 
indiscriminately  to  all  and  sundry  who  came  near  him,  and 
with  the  ferocity  of  a  wild  beast.  The  gaoler  was  obliged  to 
put  him  in  a  strait  waistcoat  ;  for  if  he  was  dangerous  to 
others,  he  seemed  quite  as  likely  to  attempt  his  own  life. 
Tascheron's  despair,  thus  restrained  from  all  overt  acts  of 
violence,  found  a  vent  in  convulsive  struggles  which  frightened 
the  warders,  and  in  language  which,  in  the  middle  ages, 
would  have  been  set  down  to  demoniacal  possession. 

He  was  so  young  that  women  were  moved  to  pity  that  a 
life  so  filled  with  an  all-engrossing  love  should  be  cut  off. 
Quite  recently,  and  as  if  written  for  the  occasion,  Victor 
Hugo's  sombre  elegy  and  vain  plea  for  the  abolition  of  the 
death-penalty  (that  support  of  the  fabric  of  society)  had 
appeared,  and  "  The  Condemned's  Last  Day"  was  the  order 
of  the  day  in  all  conversations.  Then  finally,  above  the 
boards  of  the  assizes,  set,  as  it  were,  upon  a  pedestal,  rose  the 
invisible  mysterious  figure  of  a  woman,  standing  there  with 
her  feet  dipped  in  blood ;  condemned  to  suffer  heart-rending 
anguish,  yet  outwardly  to  live  in  unbroken  household  peace. 
At  her  every  one  pointed  the  finger — and  yet,  they  almost 
admired  that  Limousin  Medea  with  the  inscrutable  brow  and 
the  heart  of  steel  in  her  white  breast.     Perhaps  she  dwelt  in 


TASCHERON.  71 

the  home  of  this  one  or  that,  and  was  the  sister,  cousin,  wife, 
or  daughter  of  such  an  one.  What  a  horror  in  their  midst ! 
It  is  in  the  domain  of  the  imagination,  according  to  Napo- 
leon, that  the  power  of  the  unknown  is  incalculably  great. 

As  for  the  des  Vanneaulx's  hundred  thousand  francs,  all  the 
efforts  of  the  police  had  not  succeeded  in  recovering  the 
money  ;  and  the  criminal's  continued  silence  was  a  strange 
defeat  for  the  prosecution.  M.  de  Granville  (in  the  place  of 
the  public  prosecutor  then  absent  at  the  Chamber  of  Deputies) 
tried  the  commonplace  stratagem  of  inducing  the  condemned 
man  to  believe  that  the  penalty  might  be  commuted  if  a  full 
confession  were  made.  But  the  lawyer  had  scarcely  showed 
himself  before  the  prisoner  greeted  him  with  furious  yells, 
and  epileptic  contortions,  and  eyes  ablaze  with  anger  and 
regret  that  hecould  not  kill  his  enemy.  Justice  could  only 
hope  that  the  Church  might  effect  something  at  the  last 
moment.  Again  and  again  the  des  Vanneaulx  applied  to  the 
Abbe  Pascal,  the  prison  chaplain.  The  Abbe  Pascal  was  not 
deficient  in  the  peculiar  quality  which  gains  a  priest  a  hearing 
from  a  prisoner.  In  the  name  of  religion,  he  braved  Tas- 
cheron's  transports  of  rage,  and  strove  to  utter  a  few  words 
amidst  the  storms  that  convulsed  that  powerful  nature.  But 
the  struggle  between  spiritual  paternity  and  the  tempest  of 
uncontrolled  passions  was  too  much  for  poor  Abbe  Pascal ;  he 
retired  from  it  defeated  and  worn  out. 

"That  is  a  man  who  has  found  his  heaven  here  on  earth," 
the  old  priest  murmured  softly  to  himself. 

Then  little  Mme.  des  Vanneaulx  thought  of  approaching  the 
criminal  herself,  and  took  counsel  of  her  friends.  The  Sieur 
des  Vanneaulx  talked  of  compromise.  Being  at  his  wits'  end, 
he  even  betook  himself  to  M.  de  Granville,  and  suggested 
that  he  (M.  de  Granville)  should  intercede  with  the  King  for 
his  uncle's  murderer  if  only,  if  only,  the  murderer  would  hand 
over  those  hundred  thousand  francs  to  the  proper  persons. 
The  avocat  general  retorted  that  the  King's  majesty  would  not 


U  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

stoop  to  haggle  with  criminals.  Then  the  des  Vanneaulx 
tried  Tascheron's  counsel,  offering  him  twenty  per  cent,  on 
the  total  amount  as  an  inducement  to  recover  it  for  them. 
This  lawyer  was  the  one  creature  whom  Tascheron  could  see 
without  flying  into  a  fury;  him,  therefore,  the  next-of-kin 
empowered  to  offer  ten  per  cent,  to  the  murderer,  to  be  paid 
over  to  the  man's  family.  But  in  spite  of  the  mutilations 
which  these  beavers  were  prepared  to  make  in  their  heritage, 
in  spite  of  the  lawyer's  eloquence,  Tascheron  continued  obdu- 
rate. Then  the  des  Vanneaulx,  waxing  wroth,  anathematized 
the  condemned  man  and  called   down  curses  upon  his  head. 

"  He  is  not  only  a  murderer,  he  has  no  sense  of  decency  !  " 
cried  they,  in  all  seriousness,  ignorant  though  they  were  of 
the  famous  Plaint  of  Fualdes.  The  Abbe  Pascal  had  totally 
failed,  the  application  for  a  reversal  of  judgment  seemed  likely 
to  succeed  no  better,  the  man  would  go  to  the  guillotine,  and 
then  all  would  be  lost. 

"  What  good  will  our  money  be  to  him  where  he  is  going  ?  " 
they  wailed.  "  A  murder  you  can  understand,  but  to  steal  a 
thing  that  is  of  no  use  !  The  thing  is  inconceivable.  What 
times  we  live  in,  to  be  sure,  when  people  of  quality  take  an 
interest  in  such  a  bandit !     He  does  not  deserve  it." 

"  He  has  very  little  sense  of  honor,"  said  Mme.  des  Van- 
neaulx. 

"  Still,  suppose  that  giving  up  the  money  should  compro- 
mise his  sweetheart !  "  suggested  an  old  maid. 

"  We  would  keep  his  secret,"  cried  the  Sieur  des  Vanneaulx. 

"But  then  you  would  become  accessories  after  the  fact," 
objected  a  lawyer. 

"  Oh  !  the  scamp  !  "  This  was  the  Sieur  des  Vanneaulx's 
conclusion  of  the  whole  matter. 

The  des  Vanneaulx's  debates  were  reported  with  some 
amusement  to  Mme.  Graslin  by  one  of  her  circle,  a  very 
clever  woman,  a  dreamer  and  idealist,  for  whom  everything 
must  be   faultless.      The  speaker  regretted   the   condemned 


TASCHERON.  73 

man's  fury ;  she  would  have  had  him  cold,  calm,  and  dig- 
nified. 

"Do  you  not  see,"  said  Veronique,  "  that  he  is  thrusting 
temptation  aside  and  baffling  their  efforts.  He  is  deliberately 
acting  like  a  wild  beast." 

"  Besides,"  objected  the  Parisienne  in  exile,  "he  is  not  a 
gentleman,  he  is  only  a  common  man." 

"  If  he  had  been  a  gentleman,  it  would  have  been  all  over 
with  that  unknown  woman  long  ago,"  Mme.  Graslin  answered. 

These  events,  twisted  and  tortured  in  drawing-rooms  and 
family  circles,  made  to  bear  endless  constructions,  picked  to 
pieces  by  the  most  expert  tongues  in  the  town,  all  contributed 
to  invest  the  criminal  with  a  painful  interest,  when,  two 
months  later,  the  appeal  for  mercy  was  rejected  by  the 
Supreme  Court.  How  would  he  bear  himself  in  his  last 
moments?  He  had  boasted  that  he  would  make  so  desperate 
a  fight  for  his  life  that  it  was  impossible  that  he  should  lose  it. 
Would  he  confess?  Would  his  conduct  belie  his  language? 
Which  side  would  win  their  wagers?  Are  you  going  to  be 
there?  Are  you  not  going?  How  are  we  to  go?  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  distance  from  the  prison  of  Limoges  to  the 
place  of  execution  is  very  short,  sparing  the  dreadful  ordeal 
of  a  long  transit  to  the  prisoner,  but  also  limiting  the  number 
of  fashionable  spectators.  The  prison  is  in  the  same  building 
as  the  Palais  de  Justice,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  du  Palais 
and  the  Rue  du  Pont-Herisson.  The  Rue  du  Palais  is  the  direct 
continuation  of  the  short  Rue  de  Monte-a-Regret  which  leads 
to  the  Place  d'Aine  or  des  Arenes,  where  executions  take  place 
(hence,  of  course,  its  name).  The  way,  as  has  been  said,  is 
very  short,  consequently  there  are  not  many  houses  along  it, 
and  but  few  windows.  What  persons  of  fashion  would  care 
to  mingle  with  the  crowd  in  the  square  on  such  an  occasion  ? 

But  the  execution  expected  from  day  to  day  was  day  after 
day  put  off,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  town,  and  for  the 
following   reasons:      The  pious  resignation  of  the   greatest 


74  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

scoundrels  on  their  way  to  death  is  a  triumph  reserved  for  the 
Church,  and  a  spectacle  which  seldom  fails  to  impress  the 
crowd.  Setting  the  interests  of  Christianity  totally  aside 
(although  this  is  a  principle  never  lost  sight  of  by  the  Church), 
the  condemned  man's  repentance  is  too  strong  a  testimony  to 
the  power  of  religion  for  the  clergy  not  to  feel  that  a  failure 
on  these  conspicuous  occasions  is  a  heart-breaking  misfortune. 
This  feeling  was  aggravated  in  1829,  for  party  spirit  ran  high 
and  poisoned  everything,  however  small,  which  had  any  bear- 
ing on  politics.  The  Liberals  were  in  high  glee  at  the  pros- 
pect of  a  public  collapse  of  the  "  priestly  party,"  an  epithet 
invented  by  Montlosier,  a  Royalist  who  went  over  to  the 
Constitutionals  and  was  carried  by  his  new  associates  further 
than  he  intended.  A  party,  in  its  corporate  capacity,  is 
guilty  of  disgraceful  actions  which  in  an  individual  would  be 
infamous,  and  so  it  happens  that  when  one  man  stands  out 
conspicuous  as  the  expression  and  incarnation  of  that  party, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  crowd  he  is  apt  to  become  a  Robespierre,  a 
Judge  Jeffreys,  a  Laubardemont — a  sort  of  altar  of  expiation 
to  which  others  equally  guilty  attach  ex  votos  in  secret. 

There  was  an  understanding  between  the  episcopal  authori- 
ties and  the  police  authorities,  and  still  the  execution  was  put 
off,  partly  to  secure  a  triumph  for  religion,  but  quite  as  much 
for  another  reason — by  the  aid  of  religion  justice  hoped  to 
arrive  at  the  truth.  The  power  of  the  public  prosecutor, 
however,  had  its  limits ;  sooner  or  later  the  sentence  must  be 
carried  out ;  and  the  very  Liberals  who  insisted,  for  the  sake 
of  opposition,  on  Tascheron's  innocence,  and  had  tried  to 
upset  the  case,  now  began  to  grumble  at  the  delay.  Opposi- 
tion, when  systematic,  is  apt  to  fall  into  inconsistencies ;  for 
the  point  in  question  is  not  to  be  in  the  right,  but  to  have  a 
stone  always  ready  to  sling  at  authority.  So  towards  the 
beginning  of  August,  the  hand  of  authority  was  forced  by  the 
clamor  (often  a  chance  sound  echoed  by  empty  heads)  called 
public  opinion.     The  execution  was  announced. 


TASCHERON.  76 

In  this  extremity  the  Abbe  Dutheil  took  it  upon  himself  to 
suggest  a  last  resource  to  the  bishop.  One  result  of  the  suc- 
cess of  this  plan  will  be  the  introduction  of  another  actor  in 
the  judicial  drama,  the  extraordinary  personage  who  forms  a 
connecting  link  between  the  different  groups  in  it ;  the  greatest 
of  all  figures  in  this  Srtne ;  the  guide  who  should  hereafter 
bring  Mme.  Graslin  on  a  stage  where  her  virtues  were  to  shine 
forth  with  the  brightest  lustre ;  where  she  would  exhibit  a  great 
and  noble  charity  and  act  the  part  of  a  Christian  and  a  min- 
istering angel. 

The  bishop's  palace  at  Limoges  stands  on  the  hillside  above 
the  Vienne.  The  gardens,  laid  out  in  terraces  supported  by 
solidly-built  walls,  crowned  by  balustrades,  descend  stepwise, 
following  the  fall  of  the  land  to  the  river.  The  sloping  ridge 
rises  high  enough  to  give  the  spectator  on  the  opposite  bank 
the  impression  that  the  Faubourg  Saint-Etienne  nestles  at  the 
foot  of  the  lowest  terrace  of  the  bishop's  garden.  Thence, 
as  you  walk  in  one  direction,  you  look  out  across  the  river, 
and  in  the  other  along  its  course  through  the  broad  fertile 
landscape.  When  the  Vienne  has  flowed  westward  past  the 
palace  gardens,  it  takes  a  sudden  turn  towards  Limoges,  skirt- 
ing the  Faubourg  Saint-Martial  in  a  graceful  curve.  A  little 
further,  and  beyond  the  suburb,  it  passes  a  charming  country 
house  called  the  Cluzeau.  You  can  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 
walls  from  the  nearest  point  of  the  nearest  terrace,  a  trick  of 
the  perspective  uniting  them  with  the  church  towers  of  the 
suburb.  Opposite  the  Cluzeau  lies  the  island  in  the  river, 
with  its  indented  shores,  its  thickly  growing  poplars  and  forest 
trees,  the  island  which  Veronique  in  her  girlhood  called  the 
Isle  of  France.  Eastward,  the  low  hills  shut  in  the  horizon 
like  the  walls  of  an  amphitheatre. 

The  charm  of  the  situation  and  the  rich  simplicity  of  the 
architecture  of  the  palace  mark  it  out  among  the  other  build- 
ings of  a  town  not  conspicuously  happy  in  the  choice  or 
employment  of  its   building   materials.      The  view  from  the 


76  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

gardens,  which  attracts  travelers  in  search  of  the  picturesque, 
had  long  been  familiar  to  the  Abbe  Dutheil.  He  had  brought 
M.  de  Grancour  with  him  this  evening,  and  went  down  from 
terrace  to  terrace,  taking  no  heed  of  the  sunset  shedding  its 
crimson  and  orange  and  purple  over  the  balustrades  along  the 
steps,  the  houses  on  the  suburb,  and  the  waters  of  the  river. 
He  was  looking  for  the  bishop,  who  at  that  moment  sat  under 
the  vines  in  a  corner  of  the  furthest  terrace,  taking  his  dessert, 
and  enjoying  the  charms  of  the  evening  at  his  ease. 

The  long  shadows  cast  by  the  poplars  on  the  island  fell  like 
a  bar  across  the  river ;  the  sunlight  lit  up  their  topmost  crests, 
yellowed  somewhat  already,  and  turned  the  leaves  to  gold. 
The  glow  of  the  sunset,  differently  reflected  from  the  different 
masses  of  green,  composed  a  glorious  harmony  of  subdued 
and  softened  color.  A  faint  evening  breeze  stirring  in  the 
depths  of  the  valley  ruffled  the  surface  of  the  Vienne  into  a 
broad  sheet  of  golden  ripples  that  brought  out  in  contrast  all 
the  sober  hues  of  the  roofs  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Etienne. 
The  church  towers  and  housetops  of  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Martial  were  blended  in  the  sunlight  with  the  vine-stems  of 
the  trellis.  The  faint  hum  of  the  country  town,  half-hidden 
in  the  re-entering  curve  of  the  river,  the  softness  of  the  air — 
all  sights  and  sounds  combined  to  steep  the  prelate  in  the 
calm  recommended  for  the  digestion  by  the  authors  of  every 
treatise  on  that  topic.  Unconsciously  the  bishop  fixed  his 
eyes  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  on  a  spot  where  the  length- 
ening shadows  of  the  poplars  in  the  island  had  reached  the 
bank  by  the  Faubourg  Saint-Etienne,  and  darkened  the  walls 
of  the  garden  close  to  the  scene  of  the  double  murder  of  old 
Pingret  and  the  servant ;  and  just  as  his  snug  felicity  of  the 
moment  was  troubled  by  the  difficulties  which  his  vicars-general 
recalled  to  his  recollection,  the  bishop's  expression  grew 
inscrutable  by  reason  of  many  thoughts.  The  two  subordinates 
attributed  his  absence  of  mind  to  ennui ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
the  bishop  had  just  discovered  in  the  sands  of  the  Vienne  the 


TASCHERON.  H 

key  to  the  puzzle,  the  clue  which  the  des  Vanneaulx  and  the 
police  were  seeking  in  vain. 

"  My  lord,"  began  the  Abbe  de  Grancour,  as  he  came  up 
to  the  bishop,  "  everything  has  failed  ;  we  shall  have  the  sor- 
row of  seeing  that  unhappy  Tascheron  die  in  mortal  sin.  He 
will  bellow  the  most  awful  blasphemies  ;  he  will  heap  insults 
on  poor  Abbe  Pascal ;  he  will  spit  on  the  crucifix,  and  deny 
everything,  even  hell-fire." 

"  He  will  frighten  the  people,"  said  the  Abbe  Dutheil. 
"  The  very  scandal  and  horror  of  it  will  cover  our  defeat  and 
our  inability  to  prevent  it.  So,  as  I  was  saying  to  M.  de 
Grancour  as  we  came,  may  this  scene  drive  more  than  one 
sinner  back  to  the  bosom  of  the  Church." 

His  words  seemed  to  trouble  the  bishop,  who  laid  down  the 
bunch  of  grapes  which  he  was  stripping  on  the  table,  wiped 
his  fingers,  and  signed  to  his  two  vicars-general  to  be  seated. 

"The  Abbe  Pascal  has  managed  badly,"  said  he  at  last. 

"  He  is  quite  ill  after  the  last  scene  with  the  prisoner,"  said 
the  Abbe  de  Grancour.  "  If  he  had  been  well  enough  to 
come,  we  should  have  brought  him  with  us  to  explain  the 
difficulties  which  put  all  the  efforts  which  your  lordship  might 
command  out  of  our  power," 

"  The  condemned  man  begins  to  sing  obscene  songs  at  the 
top  of  his  vpice  when  he 'sees  one 'of  us;  the  noise  drowns 
every  word  as  soon  as  you  try  to  make  yourself  heard,"  said 
a  young  priest  who  was  sitting  beside  the  bishop. 

The  young  speaker  leaned  his  right  elbow  on  the  table,  his 
white  hand  drooped  carelessly  over  the  bunches  of  grapes  as 
he  selected  the  reddest  berries,  with  the  air  of  being  perfectly 
at  home.  He  had  a  charming  face,  and  seemed  to  be  either 
a  table  companion  or  a  favorite  with  the  bishop,  and  was,  in 
fact,  a  favorite  and  the  prelate's  table-companion.  As  the 
younger  brother  of  the  Baron  de  Rastignac  he  was  connected 
with  the  bishop  of  Limoges  by  the  ties  of  family  relationship 
and  affection.     Considerations  of   fortune  had  induced  the 


•78  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

young  man  to  enter  the  Church  ;  and  the  bishop,  aware  of 
this,  had  taken  his  young  relative  as  his  private  secretary 
until  such  time  as  advancement  might  befall  him  ;  for  the 
Abbe  Gabriel  bore  a  name  which  predestined  him  to  the 
highest  dignities  of  the  Church. 

"Then  have  you  been  to  see  him,  my  son?"  asked  the  bishop. 

"  Yes,  my  lord.  As  soon  as  I  appeared,  the  miserable  man 
poured  out  a  torrent  of  the  most  disgusting  language  against 
you  and  me ;  his  behavior  made  it  impossible  for  a  priest  to 
stay  with  him.  Will  you  permit  me  to  offer  you  a  piece  of 
advice,  my  lord  ?" 

"Let  us  hear  the  wisdom  which  God  sometimes  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  babes,"  said  the  bishop. 

"Did  he  not  cause  Balaam's  ass  to  speak?"  the  young 
Abbe  de  Rastignac  retorted  quickly. 

"According  to  some  commentators,  the  ass  was  not  very 
well  aware  of  what  she  was  saying,"  the  bishop  answered, 
laughing. 

Both  the  vicars-general  smiled.  In  the  first  place,  it  was 
the  bishop's  joke ;  and,  in  the  second,  it  glanced  lightly  on 
this  young  abbe,  of  whom  all  the  dignitaries  and  ambitious 
churchmen  grouped  about  the  bishop  were  envious. 

"  My  advice  would  be  to  beg  M.  de  Granville  to  put  off 
the  execution  for  a  few  days  yet.  If  the  condemned  man 
knew  that  he  owed  those  days  of  grace  to  our  intercession,  he 
would  perhaps  make  some  show  of  listening  to  us,  and  if  he 
listens " 

"  He  will  persist  in  his  conduct  when  he  sees  what  comes 
of  it,"  said  the  bishop,  interrupting  his  favorite.  "Gentle- 
men," he  resumed  after  a  moment's  pause,  "is  the  town 
acquainted  with  these  details?" 

"Where  will  you  find  the  house  where  they  are  not  dis- 
cussed? "  answered  the  Abbe  de  Grancour.  "The  condition 
of  our  good  Abbe  Pascal  since  his  last  interview  is  matter  of 
common  talk  at  this  moment." 


TASCHERON.  79 

"When  is  Tascheron  to  be  executed?"  asked  the  bishop. 

"To-morrow.     It  is  market-day,"  replied  M.  de  Grancour. 

"Gentlemen,  religion  must  not  be  vanquished,"  cried  the 
bishop.  "The  more  attention  is  attracted  to  this  affair,  the 
more  determined  am  I  to  secure  a  signal  triumph.  The 
Church  is  passing  through  a  difficult  crisis.  Miracles  are 
called  for  here  among  an  industrial  population,  where  sedition 
has  spread  itself  and  taken  root  far  and  wide ;  where  religious 
and  monarchical  doctrines  are  regarded  with  a  critical  spirit ; 
where  nothing  is  respected  by  a  system  of  analysis  derived 
from  Protestantism  by  the  so-called  Liberalism  of  to-day, 
which  is  free  to  take  another  name  to-morrow.  Go  to  M.  de 
Granville,  gentlemen,  he  is  with  us  heart  and  soul ;  tell  him 
that  we  ask  for  a  few  days'  respite.  I  will  go  to  see  the 
unhappy  man." 

"You,"  my  lord  !  "  cried  the  Abbe  de  Rastignac.  "Will 
not  too  much  be  compromised  if  you  fail  ?  You  should  only 
go  when  success  is  assured." 

"If  my  lord  bishop  will  permit  me  to  give  my  opinion," 
said  the  Abbe  Dutheil,  "I  think  that  I  can  suggest  a  means 
of  securing  the  triumph  of  religion  under  these  melancholy 
circumstances." 

The  bishop's  response  was  a  somewhat  cool  sign  of  assent, 
which  showed  how  low  his  vicar-general's  credit  stood  with 
him. 

"  If  any  one  has  any  ascendency  over  this  rebellious  soul, 
and  may  bring  it  to  God,  it  is  M.  Bonnet,  the  cure  of  the 
village  where  the  man  was  born,"  the  Abbe  Dutheil  went 
on. 

"One  of  your  proteges,"  remarked  the  bishop. 

"  My  lord,  M.  Bonnet  is  one  of  those  who  recommend 
themselves  by  their  militant  virtues  and  evangelical  labors." 

This  answer,  so  modest  and  simple,  was  received  with  a 
silence  which  would  have  disconcerted  any  one  but  the  Abbe 
Dutheil.     He  had  alluded  to  merits  which  had  been  over- 


80  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

looked,  and  the  three  who  heard  him  chose  to  regard  the 
words  as  one  of  the  meek  sarcasms,  neatly  put,  impossible  to 
resent,  in  which  churchmen  excel,  accustomed  as  they  are  by 
their  training  to  say  the  thing  they  mean  without  transgressing 
the  severe  rules  laid  down  for  them  in  the  least  particular. 
But  it  was  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  the  abbe  never  thought  of 
himself.     Then — 

"  I  have  heard  of  Saint  Aristides  for  too  long,"  the  bishop 
made  answer,  smiling.  "  If  I  were  to  leave  his  light  under  a 
bushel,  it  would  be  injustice  or  prejudice  on  my  part.  Your 
Liberals  cry  up  your  M.  Bonnet  as  if  he  were  one  of  them- 
selves ;  I  mean  to  see  this  rural  apostle  and  judge  for  myself. 
Go  to  the  public  prosecutor,  gentlemen,  and  ask  him  in  my 
name  for  a  respite ;  I  will  await  his  answer  before  despatching 
our  well-beloved  Abbe  Gabriel  to  Mont6gnac  to  fetch  the  holy 
man  for  us.  We  will  put  his  beatitude  in  the  way  of  work- 
ing a  miracle " 

The  Abbe  Dutheil  flushed  red  at  these  words  from  the 
prelate-noble,  but  he  chose  to  disregard  any  slight  that  they 
might  contain  for  him.  Both  vicars-general  silently  took 
their  leave,  and  left  the  greatly  perplexed  bishop  alone  with  his 
young  friend. 

"  The  secrets  of  the  confessional  which  we  require  lie  buried 
there,  no  doubt,"  said  the  bishop,  pointing  to  the  shadows  of 
the  poplars  where  they  reached  a  lonely  house  half-way  be- 
tween the  island  and  the  Faubourg  Saint-Etienne. 

"So  I  have  always  thought,"  Gabriel  answered.  "I  am 
not  a  judge,  and  I  do  not  care  to  play  the  spy ;  but  if  I  had 
been  the  examining  magistrate,  I  should  know  the  name  of 
the  woman  who  is  trembling  now  at  every  sound,  at  every 
word  that  is  uttered,  compelled  all  the  while  to  wear  a  smooth, 
unclouded  brow  under  pain  of  accompanying  the  condemned 
man  to  his  death.  Yet  she  has  nothing  to  fear.  I  have  seen 
the  man — he  will  carry  the  secret  of  his  passionate  love  to  his 
grave." 


TASCHERON.  81 

"  Crafty  young  man  !  "  said  the  bishop,  pinching  his  secre- 
tary's ear,  as  he  pointed  out  a  spot  between  the  island  in  the 
river  and  the  Faubourg  Saint-Etienne,  lit  up  by  a  last  red  ray 
from  the  sunset.  The  young  priest's  eyes  had  been  fixed  on 
it  as  he  spoke.  "Justice  ought  to  have  searched  there;  is  it 
not  so?" 

"  I  went  to  see  the  criminal  to  try  the  effect  of  my  guess 
upon  him ;  but  he  is  watched  by  spies,  and,  if  I  had  spoken 
audibly,  I  might  have  compromised  the  woman  for  whom  he 
is  dying." 

"Let  us  keep  silent,"  said  the  bishop.  "We  are  not  con- 
cerned with  man's  justice.  One  head  will  fall,  and  that  is 
enough.  Besides,  sooner  or  later,  the  secret  will  return  to 
the  Church." 

The  perspicacity  of  the  priest,  fostered  by  the  habit  of  medi- 
tation, is  far  keener  than  the  insight  of  the  lawyer  and  the 
detective.  After  all  the  preliminary  investigations,  after  the 
legal  inquiry,  and  the  trial  at  the  assizes,  the  bishop  and  his 
secretary,  looking  down  from  the  height  of  the  terrace,  had 
in  truth,  by  dint  of  contemplation,  succeeded  in  discovering 
details  as  yet  unknown. 

M.  de  Granville  was  playing  his  evening  game  of  whist  in 
Mme.  Graslin's  house,  and  his  visitors  were  obliged  to  wait 
for  his  return.  It  was  near  midnight  before  his  decision  was 
known  at  the  palace,  and  by  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  the 
Abbe  Gabriel  started  out  for  Mont6gnac  in  the  bishop's  own 
traveling  carriage,  loaned  to  him  for  the  occasion.  The  place 
is  about  nine  leagues  distant  from  Limoges  ;  it  lies  under  the 
mountains  of  the  Correze,  in  that  part  of  Limousin  which 
borders  on  the  department  of  the  Creuse.  All  Limoges,  when 
the  abbe  left  it,  was  in  a  ferment  of  excitement  over  the  exe- 
cution promised  for  this  day,  an  expectation  destined  to  be 
balked  once  more. 


III. 
THE   CURE  OF   MONTEGNAC. 

In  priests  and  fanatics  there  is  a  certain  tendency  to  insist 
upon  the  very  utmost  to  which  they  are  legally  entitled  where 
their  interests  are  concerned.  Is  this  a  result  of  poverty  ?  Is 
an  egoism  which  favors  the  development  of  greed  one  of  the 
consequences  of  isolation  upon  a  man's  character?  Or  are 
shrewd  business  habits,  as  well  as  parsimony,  acquired  by  a 
course  of  management  of  charitable  funds  ?  Each  tempera- 
ment suggests  a  different  explanation,  but  the  fact  remains  the 
same  whether  it  lurks  (as  not  seldom  happens)  beneath  urbane 
good-humor,  or  (and  equally  often)  is  openly  manifested ;  and 
the  difficulty  of  putting  the  hand  in  the  pocket  is  evidently 
increasingly  felt  on  a  journey. 

Gabriel  de  Rastignac,  the  prettiest  young  gentleman  who 
had  bowed  his  head  before  the  altar  of  the  tabernacle  for  some 
time,  only  gave  thirty  sous  to  the  postillions,  and  traveled 
slowly  accordingly.  The  postillion  tribe  drive  with  all  due 
respect  a  bishop  who  does  but  pay  twice  the  amount  demanded 
of  ordinary  mortals,  but,  at  the  same  time,  they  are  careful 
not  to  damage  the  episcopal  equipage,  for  fear  of  getting  them- 
selves into  trouble.  The  abbe,  traveling  alone  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  spoke  mildly  at  each  relay — 

"  Just  drive  on  a  little  faster,  can't  you?  " 

"  You  can't  get  the  whip  to  work  without  a  little  palm 
oil,"  an  old  postillion  replied,  and  the  young  abbe,  much 
mystified,  fell  back  in  a  corner  of  the  carriage.  He  amused 
himself  by  watching  the  landscape  through  which  they  were 
traveling,  and  walked  up  a  hill  now  and  again  on  the  winding 
road  from  Bordeaux  to  Lyons. 

Five  leagues  beyond  Limoges  the  country  changes.  You 
have  left  behind  the  charming  low  hills  about  the  Vienne 
(82) 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  83 

and  the  fair  meadow  slopes  of  Limousin,  which  sometimes 
(and  this  particularly  about  Saint-Leonard)  put  you  in  mind 
of  Switzerland.  You  find  yourself  in  a  wilder  and  sterner 
district.  Wide  moors,  vast  steppes  without  grass  or  herds  of 
horses,  stretch  away  to  the  mountains  of  the  Correze  on  the 
horizon.  The  far-off  hills  do  not  tower  above  the  plain,  a 
grandly,  rent  wall  of  rock  like  the  Alps  in  the  south  ;  you  look 
in  vain  for  the  desolate  peaks  and  glowing  gorges  of  the  Apen- 
nine,  or  for  the  majesty  of  the  Pyrenees — the  curving  wave- 
like swell  of  the  hills  of  the  Correze  bears  witness  to  their 
origin,  to  the  peaceful  slow  subsidence  of  the  waters  which 
once  overwhelmed  this  country. 

These  undulations,  characteristic  of  this,  and,  indeed,  of 
most  of  the  hill  districts  of  France,  have  pernaps,  contributed 
quite  as  much  as  the  climate  to  gain  for  the  land  its  title  of 
"the  kindly,"  which  Europe  has  confirmed.  But  it  is  a 
dreary  transition  country  which  separates  Limousin  from  the 
provinces  of  Marche  and  Auvergne.  In  the  mind  of  the  poet 
and  thinker  who  crosses  it,  it  calls  up  visions  of  the  Infinite 
(a  terrible  thought  for  certain  souls)  ;  a  woman  looking  out 
on  its  monotonous  sameness  is  driven  to  muse ;  and  to  those 
who  must  dwell  with  the  wilderness,  nature  shows  herself  stub- 
born, peevish,  and  barren  ;  'tis  a  churlish  soil  that  covers 
these  wide  gray  plains. 

Only  the  neighborhood  of  a  great  capital  can  work  such  a 
miracle  as  transformed  Brie  during  the  last  two  centuries. 
Here  there  is  no  large  settlement  which  sometimes  puts  life 
into  the  waste  lands  which  the  agricultural  economist  regards 
as  blanks  in  creation,  spots  where  civilization  groans  aghast, 
and  the  tourist  finds  no  inns  and  a  total  absence  of  that  pic- 
turesqueness  in  which  he  delights. 

But  to  lofty  spirits  the  moors,  the  shadows  needed  in  the 
vast  picture  of  nature,  are  not  repellent.  In  our  own  day, 
Fenimore  Cooper,  owner  of  so  melancholy  a  talent,  has  set 
forth  the  mysterious  charm  of  great  solitudes  magnificently  in 


84  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"The  Prairie."  But  the  wastes  shunned  by  every  form  of 
plant  life,  the  barren  soil  covered  with  loose  stones  and  water- 
borne  pebbles,  the  "bad  lands"  of  the  earth,  are  so  many 
challenges  to  civilization.  France  must  face  her  difficulties 
and  find  a  solution  for  them,  as  the  British  are  doing  \  their 
patient  heroism  is  turning  the  most  barren  heather-land  in 
Scotland  into  productive  farms.  Left  to  their  primitive  deso- 
lation, these  fallows  produce  a  crop  of  discouragement,  of 
idleness,  of  poor  physique  from  insufficient  food,  and  crime, 
whenever  want  grows  too  clamorous.  In  these  few  words,  you 
have  the  past  history  of  Montegnac. 

What  is  there  to  be  done  when  a  waste  on  so  vast  a  scale  is 
neglected  by  the  administration,  deserted  by  the  nobles,  exe- 
crated by  workers?  Its  inhabitants  declare  war  against  a 
social  system  which  refuses  to  do  its  duty,  and  so  it  was  in 
former  times  with  the  folk  of  Montegnac.  They  lived,  like 
Highlanders,  by  murder  and  rapine.  At  sight  of  that  country, 
a  thoughtful  observer  could  readily  imagine  how  that  only 
twenty  years  ago  the  people  of  the  village  were  at  war  with 
society  at  large. 

The  wide  plateau,  cut  away  on  one  side  by  the  Vienne,  on 
another  by  the  lovely  valleys  of  Marche,  bounded  by  the  Au- 
vergne  to  the  east,  and  shut  in  by  the  mountains  of  the  Cor- 
reze  on  the  south,  is  very  much  like  (agriculture  apart)  the 
uplands  of  Beauce,  which  separate  the  basin  of  the  Loire 
from  the  basin  of  the  Seine,  or  the  plateaux  of  Touraine  or  of 
Berri,  or  many  others  of  these  facets,  as  it  were,  on  the  sur- 
face of  France,  so  numerous  that  they  demand  the  careful 
attention  of  the  greatest  administrators. 

It  is  an  unheard-of  thing  that  while  people  complain  that 
the  masses  are  discontented  with  their  condition,  and  con- 
stantly aspiring  towards  social  elevation,  a  government  cannot 
find  a  remedy  for  this  in  a  country  like  France,  where  statistics 
show  that  there  are  millions  of  acres  of  land  lying  idle,  and 
in  some  cases  (as  in  Berri)  covered  with  leaf  mold  seven  or 


THE  CURE.    OF  MONT&GNAC.  85 

eight  feet  thick  !  A  good  deal  of  this  land  which  should 
support  whole  villages,  and  yield  a  magnificent  return  to  culti- 
vation, is  the  property  of  pig-headed  communes  which  refuse 
to  sell  to  speculators  because,  forsooth,  they  wish  to  preserve 
the  right  of  grazing  some  hundred  cows  upon  it.  Impotence 
is  writ  large  over  all  these  lands  without  a  purpose.  Yet  every 
bit  of  land  will  grow  some  special  thing,  and  neither  arms 
nor  will  to  work  are  lacking,  but  administrative  ability  and 
conscience. 

Hitherto  the  upland  districts  of  France  have  been  sacrificed 
to  the  valleys.  The  government  has  given  its  fostering  protec- 
tion to  districts  well  able  to  take  care  of  themselves.  But 
most  of  these  unlucky  wastes  have  no  water  supply,  the  first 
requisite  for  cultivation.  The  mists  which  might  fertilize  the 
gray  dead  soil  by  depositing  their  oxides  are  swept  across 
them  by  the  wind.  There  are  no  trees  to  arrest  the  clouds  and 
suck  up  their  nourishing  moisture.  A  few  plantations  here 
and  there  would  be  a  godsend  in  such  places.  The  poor  folk 
who  live  in  these  wilds,  at  a  practically  impossible  distance 
from  the  nearest  large  town,  are  without  a  market  for  their 
produce — if  they  have  any.  Scattered  about  on  the  edges  of 
a  forest  left  to  nature,  they  pick  up  their  firewood  and  eke  out 
a  precarious  existence  by  poaching  ;  in  the  winter  starvation 
stares  them  in  the  face.  They  have  not  capital  enough  to 
grow  wheat,  for  so  poor  are  they  that  ploughs  and  cattle  are 
beyond  their  means ;  and  they  live  on  chestnuts.  If  you  have 
wandered  through  some  Natural  History  Museum  and  felt  the 
indescribable  depression  which  comes  on  after  a  prolonged 
study  of  the  unvarying  brown  hues  of  the  European  specimens, 
you  will  perhaps  understand  how  the  perpetual  contemplation 
of  the  gray  plains  must  affect  the  moral  conditions  of  the 
people  who  live  face  to  face  with  such  disheartening  ster- 
ility. There  is  no  shadow,  nor  contrast,  nor  coolness ;  no 
sight  to  stir  associations  which  gladden  the  mind.  One  could 
hail  a  stunted  crab-tree  there  as  a  friend. 

Q 


16  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

The  high-road  forked  at  length,  and  a  cross-road  branched 
off  towards  the  village  a  few  leagues  distant.  Montegnac 
lying  (as  its  name  indicates)  at  the  foot  of  a  ridge  of  hill  is 
the  chief  village  of  a  canton  on  the  borders  of  Haute- 
Vienne.  The  hillside  above  belongs  to  the  township  which 
encircles  hill  country  and  plain ;  indeed,  the  commune  is  a 
miniature  Scotland,  and  has  its  highlands  and  its  lowlands. 
Only  a  league  away,  at  the  back  of  the  hill  which  shelters  the 
township,  rises  the  first  peak  of  the  chain  of  the  Correze,  and 
all  the  country  between  is  filled  by  the  great  forest  of  Mon- 
tegnac, crowning  the  slope  above  the  village,  covering  the  little 
valleys  and  bleak  undulating  land  (left  bare  in  patches  here 
and  there),  climbing  the  peak  itself,  stretching  away  to  the 
north  in  a  long  narrow  strip  which  ends  abruptly  in  a  point 
on  a  steep  bank  above  the  Aubusson  road.  That  bit  of  steep 
bank  rises  above  a  deep  hollow  through  which  the  high-road 
runs  from  Lyons  to  Bordeaux.  Many  a  time  coaches  and 
foot-passengers  have  been  stopped  in  the  darkest  part  of  the 
dangerous  ravine  ;  and  the  robberies  nearly  always  went  with- 
out punishment.  The  situation  favored  the  highwaymen,  who 
escaped  by  paths  well  known  to  them  into  their  forest  fast- 
nesses. In  such  a  country  the  investigations  of  justice  find 
little  trace.     People  accordingly  shunned  that  route. 

Without  traffic  neither  commerce  nor  industry  can  exist ; 
the  exchange  of  intellectual  and  material  wealth  becomes 
impossible.  The  visible  wonders  of  civilization  are  in  all  cases 
the  result  of  the  application  of  ideas  as  old  as  man.  A  thought 
in  the  mind  of  man — that  is  from  age  to  age  the  starting-point 
and  the  goal  of  all  our  civilization.  The  history  of  Montegnac 
is  a  proof  of  this  axiom  of  social  science.  When  the  administra- 
tion found  itself  in  a  position  to  consider  the  pressing  prac- 
tical needs  of  the  country,  the  strip  of  forest  was  felled, 
gendarmes  were  posted  to  accompany  the  diligence  through 
the  two  stages ;  but,  to  the  shame  of  the  gendarmerie  be  it 
said,  it  was  not  the  sword  but  a  voice,  not  Corporal  Chervin 


THE   CUR £    OF  MONTE\GNAC.  87 

but  Parson  Bonnet,  who  won  the  battle  of  civilization  by 
reforming  the  lives  of  the  people.  The  cure,  seized  with  pity 
and  compassion  for  those  poor  souls,  tried  to  regenerate  them, 
and  persevered  till  he  gained  his  end. 

After  another  hour's  journey  across  the  plains  where  flints 
succeed  to  dust,  and  dust  to  flints,  and  flocks  of  partridges 
abode  in  peace,  rising  at  the  approach  of  the  carriage  with  a 
heavy  whirring  sound  of  their  wings,  the  Abbe  Gabriel,  like  most 
other  travelers  who  pass  that  way,  hailed  the  sight  of  the  roofs 
of  the  township  with  a  certain  pleasure.  As  you  enter  Monteg- 
nac  you  are  confronted  by  one  of  the  queer  posthouses,  not 
to  be  found  out  of  France.  The  signboard,  nailed  up  with 
four  nails  above  a  sorry  empty  stable,  is  a  rough  oaken  plank 
on  which  a  pretentious  postillion  has  carved  an  inscription, 
darkening  the  letters  with  ink  :  "  Poast  hosses,"  it  runs.  The 
door  is  nearly  always  wide  open.  The  threshold  is  a  plank  set  up 
edgewise  in  the  earth  to  keep  the  rain-water  out  of  the  stable, 
the  floor  being  below  the  level  of  the  road  outside.  Within, 
the  traveler  sees,  to  his  sorrow,  the  harness,  worn,  mildewed, 
mended  with  string,  ready  to  give  way  at  the  first  tug.  The 
horses  are  probably  not  to  be  seen  ;  they  are  at  work  on  the 
land,  or  out  at  grass,  anywrhere  and  everywhere  but  in  the 
stable.  If  by  any  chance  they  are  within  they  are  feeding. 
If  the  horses  are  ready,  the  postillion  has  gone  to  see  his  aunt 
or  his  cousin,  or  gone  to  sleep,  or  he  is  getting  in  his  hay. 
Nobody  knows  where  he  is  ;  you  must  wait  while  somebody  goes 
to  find  him.  He  does  not  stir  until  he  has  a  mind  ;  and  when 
he  comes,  it  takes  him  an  eternity  to  find  his  waistcoat  or  his 
whip,  or  to  rub  down  his  cattle.  The  buxom  dame  in  the  door- 
way fidgets  about  even  more  restlessly  than  the  traveler,  and 
forestalls  any  outburst  on  his  part  by  bestirring  herself  a  good 
deal  more  quickly  than  the  horses.  .  She  personates  the  post- 
mistress whose  husband  is  out  in  the  fields. 

It  was  in  such  a  stable  as  this  that  the  bishop's  favorite  left 
his  traveling  carriage.      The  walls   looked   like   maps;    the 


88  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

thatched  roof,  as  gay  with  flowers  as  a  garden  bed,  bent  under 
the  weight  of  its  growing  house-leeks.  He  asked  the  woman 
of  the  place  to  have  everything  in  readiness  for  his  departure 
in  an  hour's  time,  and  inquired  of  her  his  way  to  the  parson- 
age. The  good  woman  pointed  out  a  narrow  alley  between 
two  houses.  That  was  the  way  to  the  church,  she  said,  and 
he  would  find  the  parsonage  hard  by. 

While  the  abbe  climbed  the  steep  path  paved  with  cobble- 
stones between  the  hedgerows  on  either  side,  the  postmistress 
fell  to  questioning  the  postboy.  Every  postboy  along  the 
road  from  Limoges  had  passed  on  to  his  brother  whip  the 
surmises  of  the  first  postillion  concerning  the  bishop's  inten- 
tions. So  while  Limoges  was  turning  out  of  bed  and  talking 
of  the  execution  of  old  Pingret's  murderer,  the  country-folk 
all  along  the  road  were  spreading  the  news  of  the  pardon 
procured  by  the  bishop  for  the  innocent  prisoner,  and  prattling 
of  supposed  miscarriages  of  justice,  insomuch  that  when  Jean- 
Francois  came  to  the  scaffold  at  a  later  day,  he  was  likely  to  be 
regarded  as  a  martyr. 

The  Abbe  Gabriel  went  some  few  paces  along  the  footpath, 
red  with  autumn  leaves,  dark  with  blackberries  and  sloes; 
then  he  turned  and  stood,  acting  on  the  instinct  which 
prompts  us  to  make  a  survey  of  any  strange  place,  an  instinct 
which  we  share  with  the  horse  and  dog.  The  reason  of  the 
choice  of  the  site  of  Montegnac  was  apparent  ;  several  streams 
broke  out  of  the  hillside,  and  a  small  river  flowed  along  by 
the  departmental  road  which  leads  from  the  township  to  the 
prefecture.  Like  the  rest  of  the  villages  in  this  plateau, 
Montegnac  is  built  of  blocks  of  clay,  dried  in  the  sun  ;  if  a 
fire  broke  out  in  a  cottage,  it  is  possible  that  it  might  find  it 
earth  and  leave  it  brick.  The  roofs  are  of  thatch  ;  altogether, 
it  was  a  poor-looking  place  that  the  bishop's  messenger  saw. 
Below  Montegnac  lay  fields  of  rye,  potatoes,  and  turnips, 
land  won  from  the  plain.  In  the  meadows  on  the  lowest 
slope  of  the   hillside,  watered  by   artificial   channels,  were 


THE  CVR&   OF  MONT&GNAC.  89 

Some  of  the  celebrated  breed  of  Limousin  horses ;  a  legacy 
(so  it  is  said)  of  the  Arab  invaders  of  France,  who  crossed 
the  Pyrenees  to  meet  death  from  the  battle-axes  of  Charles 
Mattel's  Franks,  between  Poitiers  and  Tours.  Up  above  on 
the  heights  the  soil  looked  parched.  Now  and  again  the 
reddish  scorched  surface,  burnt  bare  by  the  sun,  indicated  the 
arid  soil  which  the  chestnuts  love.  The  water,  thriftily  dis- 
tributed along  the  irrigation  channels,  was  only  sufficient  to 
keep  the  meadows  fresh  and  green ;  on  these  hillsides  grows 
the  fine  short  grass,  the  delicate  sweet  pasture  that  builds  you 
up  a  breed  of  horses  delicate  and  impatient  of  control,  fiery, 
but  not  possessed  of  much  staying-power  ;  unexcelled  in  their 
native  district,  but  apt  to  change  their  character  when  they 
change  their  country. 

Some  young  mulberry  trees  indicated  an  intention  of  grow- 
ing silk.  Like  most  villages,  Montegnac  could  only  boast  a 
single  street,  to  wit,  the  road  that  ran  through  it ;  but  there 
was  an  Upper  and  Lower  Montegnac  on  either  side  of  it, 
each  cut  in  two  by  a  little  pathway  running  at  right  angles  to 
the  road.  The  hillside  below  a  row  of  houses  on  the  ridge 
was  gay  with  terraced  gardens  which  rose  from  a  level  of 
severalfeet  above  the  road,  necessitating  flights  of  steps, 
sometimes  of  earth,  sometimes  paved  with  cobble-stones.  A 
few  old  women,  here  and  there,  who  sat  spinning  or  looking 
after  the  children,  put  some  human  interest  into  the  picture, 
and  kept  up  a  conversation  between  Upper  and  Lower  Mon- 
tegnac by  talking  to  each  other  across  the  road,  usually  quiet 
enough.  In  this  way  news  traveled  pretty  quickly  from  one 
end  of  the  township  to  the  other.  The  gardens  were  full  of 
fruit  trees,  cabbages,  onions,  and  potherbs ;  beehives  stood 
in  rows  along  the  terraces. 

A  second  parallel  row  of  cottages  lay  below  the  road,  their 
gardens  sloping  down  towards  the  little  river  which  flowed 
through  fields  of  thick-growing  hemp,  the  fruit  trees  which 
love  damp  places  marking  its  course.     A  few  cottages,  the 


90  TH£   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

posthouse  among  them,  nestled  in  a  hollow,  a  situation  well 
adapted  for  the  weavers  who  lived  in  them,  and  almost  every 
house  was  overshadowed  by  the  walnut  trees,  which  flourish 
best  in  heavy  soil.  At  the  further  end  of  Montegnac,  and  on 
the  same  side  of  the  road,  stood  a  house  larger  and  more 
carefully  kept  than  the  rest ;  it  was  the  largest  of  a  group 
equally  neat  in  appearance,  a  little  hamlet,  in  fact,  separated 
from  the  township  by  its  gardens,  and  known  then,  as  to-day, 
by  the  name  of  '■*.  Tascherons.'  "  The  commune  was  not  much 
in  itself,  but  some  thirty  outlying  farms  belonged  to  it.  In 
the  valley  several  "water-lanes"  like  those  in  Berri  and 
Marche  marked  out  the  course  of  the  little  streams  with  green 
fringes.  The  whole  commune  looked  like  a  green  ship  in  the 
midst  of  a  wide  sea. 

Whenever  a  house,  a  farm,  a  village,  or  a  district  passes 
from  a  deplorable  state  to  a  more  satisfactory  condition  of 
things,  though  as  yet  scarcely  to  be  called  strikingly  pros- 
perous, the  life  there  seems  so  much  a  matter  of  course,  so 
natural,  that  at  first  sight  a  spectator  can  never  guess  how  much 
toil  went  to  the  founding  of  that  not  extraordinary  prosperity ; 
what  an  amount  of  effort,  vast  in  proportion  to  the  strength 
that  undertook  it ;  what  heroic  persistence  lies  there  buried 
and  out  of  sight,  effort  and  persistence  without  which  the 
visible  changes  could  not  have  taken  place.  So  the  young 
abbe  saw  nothing  unusual  in  the  pleasant  view  before  his  eyes ; 
he  little  knew  what  that  country  had  been  before  M.  Bonnet 
came  to  it. 

He  turned  and  went  a  few  paces  further  up  the  path,  and 
soon  came  in  sight  of  the  church  and  parsonage,  about  six 
hundred  feet  above  the  gardens  of  Upper  Montegnac.  Both 
buildings,  when  first  seen  in  the  distance,  were  hard  to  dis- 
tinguish among  the  ivy-covered  stately  ruins  of  the  old  Castle 
of  Montegnac,  a  stronghold  of  the  Navarreins  in  the  twelfth 
century.  The  parsonage  house  had  every  appearance  of  being 
built  in  the  first  instance  for  a  steward  or  a  head  gamekeeper. 


THE  CUR&   OF  MONT&GNAC.  91 

It  stood  at  the  end  of  a  broad  terrace  planted  with  lime  trees, 
and  overlooked  the  whole  countryside.  The  ravages  of  time 
bore  witness  to  the  antiquity  of  the  flight  of  steps  and  the 
walls  which  supported  the  terrace,  the  stones  had  been  forced 
out  of  place  by  the  constant  imperceptible  thrusting  of  plant 
life  in  the  crevices,  until  tall  grasses  and  wild  flowers  had 
taken  root  among  them.  Every  step  was  covered  with  a 
dark-green  carpet  of  fine  close  moss.  The  masonry,  solid 
though  it  was,  was  full  of  rifts  and  cracks,  where  wild  plants 
of  the  pellitory  and  camomile  tribe  were  growing ;  the  maiden- 
hair fern  sprang  from  the  loopholes  in  thick  masses  of  shaded 
green.  The  whole  face  of  the  wall,  in  fact,  was  hung  with 
the  finest  and  fairest  tapestry,  damasked  with  bracken  fronds, 
purple  snap-dragons  with  their  golden  stamens,  blue  borage, 
and  brown  fern  and  moss,  till  the  stone  itself  was  only  seen 
by  glimpses  here  and  there  through  its  moist,  cool  covering. 

Up  above,  upon  the  terrace,  the  clipped  box  borders  formed 
geometrical  patterns  in  a  pleasure  garden  framed  by  the  par- 
sonage house,  and  behind  the  parsonage  rose  the  crags,  a  pale 
background  of  rock,  on  which  a  few  drooping,  feathery  trees 
struggled  to  live.  The  ruins  of  the  castle  towered  above  the 
house  and  the  church. 

The  parsonage  itself,  built  of  flints  and  mortar,  boasted  a 
single  story  and  garrets  above,  apparently  empty,  to  judge  by 
the  dilapidated  windows  on  either  gable  under  the  high-pitched 
roof.  A  couple  of  rooms  on  the  ground  floor,  separated  by  a 
passage  with  a  wooden  staircase  at  the  farther  end  of  it,  two 
more  rooms  on  the  second  floor,  and  a  little  lean-to  kitchen 
built  against  the  side  of  the  house  in  the  yard,  where  a  stable 
and  coach-house  stood  perfectly  empty,  useless,  abandoned — 
this  was  all.  The  kitchen  garden  lay  between  the  house  and 
the  church  ;  a  ruinous  covered  passage  led  from  the  parsonage 
to  the  sacristy. 

The  young  abbe's  eyes  wandered  over  the  place.  He 
noted  the  four  windows  with  their  leaded  panes,  the  brown 


n  TMM  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

moss-grown  walls,  the  rough  wooden  door,  so  full  of  splits 
and  cracks  that  it  looked  like  a  bundle  of  matches,  and  the 
adorable  quaintness  of  it  all  by  no  means  took  his  fancy.  The 
grace  of  the  plant  life  which  covered  the  roofs,  the  wild 
climbing  flowers  that  sprang  from  the  rotting  wooden  sills 
and  cracks  in  the  wall,  the  trails  and  tendrils  of  the  vines, 
covered  with  tiny  clusters  of  grapes,  which  found  their  way 
in  through  the  windows,  as  if  they  were  fain  to  carry  merri- 
ment and  laughter  into  the  house — all  this  he  beheld,  and 
thanked  his  stars  that  his  way  led  to  a  bishopric,  and  not  to  a 
country  parsonage. 

The  house,  open  all  day  long,  seemed  to  belong  to  every 
one.  The  Abbe  Gabriel  walked  into  the  dining-room,  which 
opened  into  the  kitchen.  The  furniture  which  met  his  eyes 
was  poor — an  old  oak  table  with  four  twisted  legs,  an  easy- 
chair  covered  with  tapestry,  a  few  wooden  chairs,  and  an  old 
chest,  which  did  duty  as  a  sideboard.  There  was  no  one  in 
the  kitchen  except  the  cat,  the  sign  of  a  woman  in  the  house. 
The  other  room  was  the  parlor  ;  glancing  round  it,  the  young 
priest  noticed  that  the  easy-chairs  were  made  of  unpolished 
wood,  and  covered  with  tapestry.  The  paneling  of  the  walls, 
like  the  rafters,  was  of  chestnut-wood,  an-d  black  as  ebony. 
There  was  a  timepiece  in  a  green  case  painted  with  flowers,  a 
table  covered  with  a  worn  green  cloth,  one  or  two  chairs,  and 
on  the  mantle-shelf  an  Infant  Jesus  in  wax  under  a  glass  shade 
set  between  two  candlesticks.  The  hearth,  surrounded  by  a 
rough  wooden  moulding,  was  hidden  by  a  paper  screen  repre- 
senting the  Good  Shepherd  with  a  sheep  on  his  shoulder.  In 
this  way,  doubtless,  one  of  the  family  of  the  mayor,  or  of  the 
justice  of  the  peace,  endeavored  to  express  his  acknowledg- 
ments of  the  care  bestowed  on  his  training. 

The  state  of  the  house  was  something  piteous.  The  walls, 
which  had  once  been  lime-washed,  were  discolored  here  and 
there,  and  rubbed  and  darkened  up  to  the  height  of  a  man's 
head.     The   wooden   staircase,    with    its   heavy   balustrades, 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC  93 

neatly  kept  though  it  was,  looked  as  though  it  must  totter  if 
any  one  set  foot  on  it.  At  the  end  of  the  passage,  just  oppo- 
site the  front  door,  another  door  stood  open,  giving  the  Abbe 
Gabriel  an  opportunity  of  surveying  the  kitchen  garden,  shut 
in  by  the  wall  of  the  old  rampart,  built  of  the  white  crumb- 
ling stone  of  the  district.  Fruit  trees  in  full  bearing  had  been 
trained  espalier-fashion  along  this  side  of  the  garden,  but  the 
long  trellises  were  falling  to  pieces,  and  the  vine-leaves  were 
covered  with  blight. 

The  abbe  went  back  through  the  house,  and  walked  along 
the  paths  in  the  front  garden.  Down  below  the  magnificent 
wide  view  of  the  valley  was  spread  out  before  his  eyes,  a  sort 
of  oasis  on  the  edge  of  the  great  plain,  which,  in  the  light 
morning  mists,  looked  something  like  a  waveless  sea.  Behind, 
and  rather  to  one  side,  the  great  forest  stretched  away  to  the 
horizon,  the  bronzed  mass  making  a  contrast  with  the  plains, 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  church  and  the  castle  perched  on 
the  crag  stood  sharply  out  against  the  blue  sky.  As  the 
Abbe  Gabriel  paced  the  tiny  paths  among  the  box-edged 
diamonds,  circles,  and  stars,  crunching  the  gravel  beneath  his 
boots,  he  looked  from  point  to  point  at  the  scene ;  over  the 
village,  where  already  a  few  groups  of  gazers  had  formed  to 
stare  at  him,  at  the  valley  in  the  morning  light,  the  quick-set 
hedges  that  marked  the  ways,  the  little  river  flowing  under  its 
willows,,  in  such  contrast  with  the  infinite  of  the  plains. 
Gradually  his  impressions  changed  the  current  of  his  thoughts. 
He  admired  the  quietness,  he  felt  the  influences  of  the  pure 
air,  of  the  peace  inspired  by  a  glimpse  of  a  life  of  biblical 
simplicity ;  and  with  these  came  a  dim  sense  of  the  beauty  of 
that  life.  He  went  back  again  to  look  at  its  details  with  a 
more  serious  curiosity. 

A  little  girl,  left  in  charge  of  the  house  no  doubt,  but  busy 
pilfering  in  the  garden,  came  back  at  the  sound  of  a  man's 
shoes  creaking  on  the  flagged  pavement  of  the  ground-floor 
rooms.     In  her  confusion  at   being  caught  with  fruit  in  her 


94  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

hand  and  between  her  teeth,  she  made  no  answer  whatever  to 
the  questions  put  to  her  by  this  abbe — young,  handsome, 
daintily  arrayed.  The  child  had  never  believed  it  possible 
that  such  an  abbe  could  exist — radiant  in  fine  lawn,  neat  as  a 
new  pin,  and  dressed  in  fine  black  cloth  without  a  speck  or  a 
crease. 

"  M.  Bonnet  ?  "  she  echoed  at  last.  "  M.  Bonnet  is  saying 
mass,  and  Mile.  Ursule  is  gone  to  the  church." 

The  covered  passage  from  the  house  to  the  sacristy  had 
escaped  the  Abbe  Gabriel's  notice ;  so  he  went  down  the  path 
again  to  enter  the  church  by  the  principal  door.  The  church 
porch  was  a  sort  of  pent-house  facing  the  village,  set  at  the 
top  of  a  flight  of  worn  and  disjointed  steps,  overlooking  a 
square  below ;  planted  with  the  great  elm  trees  which  date 
from  the  time  of  the  Protestant  Sully,  and  full  of  channels 
washed  by  the  rains. 

The  church  itself,  one  of  the  poorest  in  France,  where 
churches  are  sometimes  very  poor,  was  not  unlike  those  huge 
barns  which  boast  a  roof  above  the  door,  supported  by  brick 
pillars  or  tree-trunks.  Like  the  parsonage  house,  it  was  built 
of  rubble,  the  square  tower  being  roofed  with  round  tiles ;  but 
nature  had  covered  the  bare  walls  with  the  richest  tracery 
mouldings,  and  made  them  fairer  still  with  color  and  light  and 
shade,  carving  her  lines  and  disposing  her  masses,  showing 
all  the  craftsman's  cunning  of  a  Michel  Angelo  in  her  work. 
The  ivy  clambered  over  both  sides,  its  sinewy  stems  clung  to 
the  walls  till  they  were  covered,  beneath  the  green  leaves,  with 
as  many  veins  as  any  anatomical  diagram.  Under  this  mantle, 
wrought  by  time  to  hide  the  wounds  which  time  had  made, 
damasked  by  autumn  flowers  that  grew  in  the  crevices,  nestled 
the  singing  birds.  The  rose  window  in  the  west  front  was 
bordered  with  blue  harebells,  like  the  first  page  of  some  richly- 
painted  missal.  There  were  fewer  flowers  on  the  north  side, 
which  communicated  with  the  parsonage,  though  even  there 
there  were  patches  of  crimson  moss  on  the  gray  stone,  but 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  95 

the  south  wall  and  the  apse  were  covered  with  many-colored 
blossoms;  there  were  a  few  saplings  rooted  in  the  cracks, 
notably  an  almond-tree,  the  symbol  of  hope.  Two  giant  firs 
grew  up  close  to  the  wall  of  the  apse,  and  served  as  lightning- 
conductors.  A  low  ruinous  wall  repaired  and  maintained  at 
elbow  height  with  fallen  fragments  of  its  own  masonry  ran 
round  the  churchyard.  In  the  midst  of  the  space  stood  an  iron 
cross  mounted  on  a  stone  pedestal,  strewn  with  sprigs  of  box 
blessed  at  Easter,  a  reminder  of  a  touching  Christian  rite,  now 
fallen  into  disuse  except  in  country  places.  Only  in  little 
villages  and  hamlets  does  the  priest  go  at  Eastertide  to  bear  to 
his  dead  the  tidings  of  the  Resurrection — "  You  will  live  again 
in  happiness."  Here  and  there  above  the  grass-covered 
graves  rose  a  rotten  wooden  cross. 

The  inside  was  in  every  way  in  keeping  with  the  pictur- 
esque neglect  outside  of  the  poor  church,  where  all  the  orna- 
ment had  been  given  by  time,  grown  charitable  for  once. 
Within,  your  eyes  turned  at  once  to  the  roof.  It  was  lined 
with  chestnut-wood  and  sustained  at  equal  distances  by  strong 
king-posts  set  on  cross-beams;  age  had  imparted  to  it  the 
richest  tones  which  old  woods  can  take  in  Europe.  The  four 
walls  were  lime-washed  and  bare  of  ornament.  Poverty  had 
made  unconscious  iconoclasts  of  these  worshipers. 

Four  pointed  windows  in  the  side  walls  let  in  the  light 
through  their  leaded  panes  ;  the  floor  was  of  brick ;  the  seats, 
wooden  benches.  The  tomb-shaped  altar  bore  for  ornament  a 
great  crucifix,  beneath  which  stood  a  tabernacle  in  walnut- 
wood  (its  mouldings  brightly  polished  and  clean),  eight 
candlesticks  (the  candles  thriftily  made  of  painted  wood),  and 
a  couple  of  china  vases  full  of  artificial  flowers,  things  that  a 
broker's  man  would  have  declined  to  look  at,  but  which  must 
serve  for  God.  The  lamp  in  the  shrine  was  simply  a  floating- 
light,  like  a  night-light,  set  in  an  old  silver-plated  holy  water 
stoup,  hung  from  the  ceiling  by  silken  cords  brought  from  the 
wreck  of  some  chateau.     The  baptismal  fonts  were  of  wood 


96  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

like  the  pulpit,  and  a  sort  of  cage  where  the  church-wardens 
sat — the  patricians  of  the  place.  The  shrine  in  the  Lady 
Chapel  offered  to  the  admiration  of  the  public  two  colored 
lithographs  framed  in  a  narrow  gilded  frame.  The  altar  had 
been  painted  white,  and  adorned  with  artificial  flowers 
planted  in  gilded  wooden  flower-pots  set  out  on  a  white 
Altar-cloth  edged  with  shabby  yellowish  lace. 

But  at  the  end  of  the  church  a  long  window  covered  with 
a  red  cotton  curtain  produced  a  magical  effect.  The  lime- 
washed  walls  caught  a  faint  rose-tint  from  that  glowing  crim- 
son ;  it  was  as  if  some  thought  divine  shone  from  the  altar  to 
fill  the  poor  place  with  warmth  and  light.  On  one  wall  of 
the  passage  which  led  into  the  sacristy  the  patron  saint  of  the 
village  had  been  carved  in  wood  and  painted — a  St.  John  the 
Baptist  and  his  sheep,  an  execrable  daub.  Yet,  in  spite  of  the 
bareness  and  poverty  of  the  church,  there  was  about  the  whole 
a  sabdued  harmony  which  appeals  to  those  whose  spirits  have 
been  finely  touched,  a- harmony  of  the  visible  and  invisible  em- 
phasized by  the  coloring.  The  rich  dark-brown  tints  of  the 
wood  made  an  admirable  relief  to  the  pure  white  of  the  walls, 
and  both  blended  with  the  triumphant  crimson  of  the  chancel 
window,  an  austere  trinity  of  color  which  recalled  the  great 
doctrine  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

If  surprise  was  the  first  feeling  called  forth  by  the  sight  of 
this  miserable  house  of  God,  pity  and  admiration  followed 
quickly  upon  it.  Did  it  not  express  the  poverty  of  those  who 
worshiped  there?  Was  it  not  in  keeping  with  the  quaint 
simplicity  of  the  parsonage  ?  And  it  was  clean  and  carefully 
kept.  You  breathed,  as  it  were,  an  atmosphere  of  the  simple 
virtues  of  the  fields ;  nothing  within  spoke  of  neglect. 
Primitive  and  homely  though  it  was,  it  was  clothed  in  prayer; 
a  soul  pervaded  it  which  you  felt,  though  you  could  not 
explain  how. 

The  Abbe  Gabriel  slipped  in  softly,  so  as  not  to  interrupt 
the  meditations  of  two  groups  on  the  front  benches  before  the 


THE   CUR&   OF  MONTAGNAC.  9t 

high-altar,  which  was  railed  off  from  the  nave  by  a  balustrade 
of  the  inevitable  chestnut-wood,  roughly  made  enough,  and 
covered  with  a  white  cloth  for  the  communion.  Just  above 
the  space  hung  the  lamp.  Some  score  of  peasant- folk  on 
either  side  were  so  deeply  absorbed  in  passionate  prayer,  that 
they  paid  no  heed  to  the  stranger  as  he  walked  up  the  church 
in  the  narrow  gangway  between  the  rows  of  benches.  As  the 
Abbe  Gabriel  stood  beneath  the  lamp,  he  could  see  into  the 
two  chancels  which  completed  the  cross  of  the  ground-plan ; 
one  of  them  led  to  the  sacristy,  the  other  to  the  churchyard. 
It  was  in  this  latter,  near  the  graves,  that  a  whole  family  clad 
in  black  were  kneeling  on  the  brick  floor,  for  there  were  no 
benches  in  this  part  of  the  church.  The  abbe  bent  before 
the  altar  on  the  step  of  the  balustrade  and  knelt  to  pray, 
giving  a  side  glance  at  this  sight,  which  was  soon  explained. 
The  Gospel  was  read  ;  the  cure  took  off  his  chasuble  and 
came  down  from  the  altar  towards  the  railing ;  and  the  abb6, 
who  had  foreseen  this,  slipped  away  and  stood  close  to  the 
wall  before  M.  Bonnet  could  see  him.     The  clock  struck  ten. 

"  My  brethren,"  said  the  cur6  in  a  faltering  voice,  "  even 
at  this  moment,  a  child  of  this  parish  is  paying  his  forfeit  to 
man's  justice  by  submitting  to  its  extreme  penalty.  We  offer 
the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  mass  for  the  repose  of  his  soul.  Let 
us  all  pray  together  to  God  to  beseech  Him  not  to  forsake 
that  child  in  his  last  moments,  to  entreat  that  repentance  here 
on  earth  may  find  in  heaven  the  mercy  which  has  been  refused 
to  it  here  below.  The  ruin  of  this  unhappy  child,  on  whom 
we  had  counted  most  surely  to  set  a  good  example,  can  only 
be  attributed  to  a  lapse  from  religious  principles " 

The  cure  was  interrupted  by  the  sound  of  sobbing  from  the 
group  of  mourners  in  the  transept ;  and  by  the  paroxysm  of 
grief  the  young  priest  knew  that  this  was  the  Tascheron  family, 
though  he  had  never  seen  them  before.  The  two  foremost 
among  them  were  old  people  of  seventy  years  at  least.  Their 
faces,  swarthy  as  a  Florentine  bronze,  were  covered  with  deep 
7 


98  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

impassive  lines.  Both  of  them,  in  their  old  patched  garments, 
stood  like  statues  close  against  the  wall ;  evidently  this  was 
the  condemned  man's  grandfather  and  grandmother.  Their 
red  glassy  eyes  seemed  to  shed  tears  of  blood  ;  the  old  arms 
trembled  so  violently  that  the  sticks  on  which  they  leaned 
made  a  faint  sound  of  scratching  on  the  bricks.  Behind  them 
the  father  and  mother,  their  faces  hidden  in  their  handker- 
chiefs, burst  into  tears.  About  the  four  heads  of  the  family 
knelt  two  married  daughters  with  their  husbands,  then  three 
sons,  stupefied  with  grief.  Five  kneeling  little  ones,  the  oldest 
not  more  than  seven  years  of  age,  understood  nothing  prob- 
ably of  all  that  went  on,  but  looked  and  listened  with  the 
apparently  torpid  curiosity,  which  in  the  peasant  is  often  a 
process  of  observation  carried  (so  far  as  the  outward  and  visi- 
ble is  concerned)  to  the  highest  possible  pitch.  Last  of  all 
came  the  poor  girl  Denise,  who  had  been  imprisoned  by  jus- 
tice, the  martyr  to  sisterly  love ;  she  was  listening  with  an 
expression  which  seemed  to  betoken  incredulity  and  straying 
thoughts.  To  her  it  seemed  impossible  that  her  brother  should 
die.  Her  face  was  a  wonderful  picture  of  another  face,  that  of 
one  among  the  three  Marys  who  could  not  believe  that  Christ 
was  dead,  though  she  had  shared  the  agony  of  His  passion. 
Pale  and  dry-eyed,  as  is  the  wont  of  those  who  have  watched 
for  many  nights,  her  freshness  had  been  withered  more  by 
sorrow  than  by  work  in  the  fields ;  but  she  still  kept  the 
beauty  of  a  country-girl,  the  full  plump  figure,  the  shapely 
red  arms,  a  perfectly  round  face,  and  clear  eyes,  glittering  at 
that  moment  with  the  light  of  despair  in  them.  Her  throat, 
firm-fleshed  and  white  below  the  line  of  sunburned  brow,  in- 
dicated the  rich  tissue  and  fairness  of  the  skin  beneath  the 
stuff.  The  two  married  daughters  were  weeping ;  their  hus- 
bands, patient  tillers  of  the  soil,  were  grave  and  sad.  None 
of  the  three  sons  in  their  sorrow  raised  their  eyes  from  the 
ground. 

Only  Denise  and  her  mother  showed  any  sign  of  rebellion 


THE  CUR&   OF  MONT&GNAC.  09 

in  the  harrowing  picture  of  resignation  and  despairing  anguish. 
The  sympathy  and  sincere  and  pious  commiseration  felt  by 
the  rest  of  the  villagers  for  a  family  so  much  respected  had 
lent  the  same  expression  to  all  faces,  an  expression  which  be- 
came a  look  of  positive  horror  when  they  gathered  from  the 
cure's  words  that  even  in  that  moment  the  knife  would  fall. 
All  of  them  had  known  the  young  man  from  the  day  of  his 
birth,  and  doubtless  all  of  them  believed  him  to  be  incapable 
of  committing  the  crime  laid  to  his  charge.  The  sobbing 
which  broke  in  upon  the  simple  and  brief  address  grew  so 
vehement  that  the  cure's  voice  suddenly  ceased,  and  he  in- 
vited those  present  to  fervent  prayer. 

There  was  nothing  in  this  scene  to  surprise  a  priest,  but 
Gabriel  de  Rastignac  was  too  young  not  to  feel  deeply  moved 
by  it.  He  had  not  as  yet  put  priestly  virtues  in  practice;  he 
knew  that  a  different  destiny  lay  before  him  ;  that  it  would 
never  be  his  duty  to  go  forth  into  the  social  breaches  where 
the  heart  bleeds  at  the  sight  of  suffering  on  every  side ;  his 
lot  would  be  cast  among  the  upper  ranks  of  the  clergy  which 
keep  alive  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  represent  the  highest  intelli- 
gence of  the  Church,  and,  when  occasion  calls  for  it,  display 
these  same  virtues  of  the  village  cure  on  the  largest  scale,  like 
the  great  bishops  of  Marseilles  and  Meaux,  the  archbishops  of 
Aries  and  Cambrai.  The  poor  peasants  were  praying  and 
weeping  for  one  who  (as  they  believed)  was  even  then  going 
to  his  death  in  a  great  public  square,  before  a  crowd  of  people 
assembled  from  all  parts  to  see  him  die,  the  agony  of  death 
made  intolerable  for  him  by  the  weight  of  shame  ;  there  was 
something  very  touching  in  this  feeble  counterpoise  of  sym- 
pathy and  prayer  from  a  few,  opposed  to  the  cruel  curiosity  of 
the  rabble  and  the  curses,  not  undeserved.  The  poor  church 
heightened  the  pathos  of  the  contrast. 

The  Abbe  Gabriel  was  tempted  to  go  over  to  the  Tascher- 
ons  and  cry,  "  Your  son,  your  brother  has  been  reprieved  !  " 
but  he  shrank  from  interrupting  the  mass ;  he  knew,  more- 


100  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

over,  that  it  was  only  a  reprieve,  the  execution  was  sure  to 
take  place  sooner  or  later.  But  he  could  not  follow  the  ser- 
vice ;  in  spite  of  himself,  he  began  to  watch  the  pastor  of 
whom  the  miracle  of  conversion  was  expected. 

Out  of  the  indications  in  the  parsonage  house,  Gabriel  de 
Rastignac  had  drawn  a  picture  of  M.  Bonnet  in  his  own 
mind :  He  would  be  short  and  stout,  he  thought,  with  a  red, 
powerful  face,  a  rough  workingman,  almost  like  one  of  the 
peasants  themselves,  and  tanned  by  the  sun.  The  reality  was 
very  far  from  this ;  the  Abbe  Gabriel  found  himself  in  the 
presence  of  an  equal.  M.  Bonnet  was  short,  slender,  and 
weakly-looking ;  yet  it  was  none  of  these  characteristics,  but 
an  impassioned  face,  such  a  face  as  we  imagine  for  an  apostle, 
which  struck  you  at  a  first  glance.  In  shape  it  was  almost 
triangular  ;  starting  from  the  temples  on  either  side  of  a  broad 
forehead,  furrowed  with  wrinkles,  the  meagre  outlines  of  the 
hollow  cheeks  met  at  a  point  in  the  chin.  In  that  face,  over- 
cast by  an  ivory  tint  like  the  wax  of  an  altar  candle,  blazed 
two  blue  eyes,  full  of  the  light  of  faith  and  the  fires  of  a  living 
hope.  Along,  slender,  straight  nose  divided  it  into  two  equal 
parts.  The  wide  mouth  spoke  even  when  the  full,  resolute 
lips  were  closed,  and  the  voice  which  issued  thence  was  one 
of  those  which  go  to  the  heart.  The  chestnut  hair,  thin, 
smooth,  and  fine,  denoted  a  poor  physique,  poorly  nour- 
ished. The  whole  strength  of  the  man  lay  in  his  will.  Such 
were  his  personal  characteristics.  In  any  other  such  short 
hands  might  have  indicated  a  bent  towards  material  pleasures; 
perhaps  he  too,  like  Socrates,  had  found  evil  in  his  nature  to 
subdue.  His  thinness  was  ungainly,  his  shoulders  protruded 
too  much,  and  he  seemed  to  be  knock-kneed  ;  his  bust  was  so 
over-developed  in  comparison  with  his  limbs  that  it  gave  him 
something  of  the  appearance  of  a  hunchback  without  the 
actual  deformity  ;  altogether,  to  an  ordinary  observer,  his  ap- 
pearance was  not  prepossessing.  Only  those  who  know  the 
miracles  of  thought  and  faith  and  art  can  recognize  and  rev- 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  101 

erence  the  light  that  burns  in  a  martyr's  eyes,  the  pallor  of 
steadfastness,  the  voice  of  love — all  traits  of  the  Curd  Bonnet. 
Here  was  a  man  worthy  of  that  early  Church  which  no  longer 
exists  save  in  the  pages  of  the  "  Martyrology  "  and  in  pictures 
of  the  sixteenth  century;  he  bore  unmistakably  the  seal  of 
human  greatness  which  most  nearly  approaches  the  divine; 
conviction  had  set  its  mark  on  him,  and  a  conviction  brings 
a  salient  indefinable  beauty  into  faces  made  of  the  commonest 
human  clay ;  the  devout  worshiper  at  any  shrine  reflects  some- 
thing of  its  golden  glow ;  even  as  the  glory  of  a  noble  love 
shines  like  a  sort  of  light  from  a  woman's  face.  Conviction 
is  human  will  come  to  its  full  strength ;  and  being  at  once  the 
cause  and  the  effect,  conviction  impresses  the  most  indifferent, 
it  is  a  kind  of  mute  eloquence  which  gains  a  hold  upon  the 
masses. 

As  the  cure  came  down  from  the  altar,  his  eyes  fell  on  the 
Abbe  Gabriel,  whom  he  recognized  ;  but  when  the  bishop's 
secretary  appeared  in  the  sacristy,  he  found  no  one  there  but 
Ursule.  Her  master  had  already  given  his  orders.  Ursule, 
a  woman  of  canonical  age,  asked  the  Abbe"  de  Rastignac  to 
follow  her  along  the  passage  through  the  garden. 

'*  Monsieur  le  Cure  told  me  to  ask  you  whether  you  had 
breakfasted,  sir,"  she  said.  "  You  must  have  started  out  from 
Limoges  very  early  this  morning  to  be  here  by  ten  o'clock, 
so  I  will  set  about  getting  breakfast  ready.  Monsieur  l'Abbe 
will  not  find  the  bishop's  table  here,  but  we  will  do  our  best. 
M.  Bonnet  will  not  be  long ;  he  has  gone  to  comfort  those 
poor  souls — the  Tascherons.  Something  very  terrible  is  hap- 
pening to-day  to  one  of  their  sons." 

"  But  where  do  the  poor  people  live?"  the  Abbe  Gabriel 
put  in  at  length.  "  I  must  take  M.  Bonnet  back  to  Limoges 
with  me  at  once  by  the  bishop's  orders.  The  unhappy  man 
is  not  to  be  executed  to-day ;  his  lordship  has  obtained  a  re- 
prieve  ' ' 

"Ah!"  cried  Ursule,  her  tongue  itching   to  spread  the 


102  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

news.  "  There  will  be  plenty  of  time  to  take  that  comfort  to 
the  poor  things  whilst  I  am  getting  breakfast  ready.  The 
Tascherons  live  at  the  other  end  of  the  village.  You  follow 
the  path  under  the  terrace,  that  will  take  you  to  the  house." 

As  soon  as  the  Abbe  Gabriel  was  fairly  out  of  sight,  Ursule 
went  down  herself  to  take  the  tidings  to  the  village,  and  to 
obtain  the  things  needed  for  breakfast. 

The  cure  had  learned,  for  the  first  time,  at  the  church  of  a 
desperate  resolve  on  the  part  of  the  Tascherons,  made  since 
the  appeal  had  been  rejected.  They  would  leave  the  district ; 
they  had  already  sold  all  they  had,  and  that  very  morning  the 
money  was  to  be  paid  down.  Formalities  and  unforeseen 
delays  had  retarded  the  sale ;  they  had  been  forced  to  stay  in 
the  countryside  after  Jean-Francois  was  condemned,  and  every 
day  had  been  for  them  a  cup  of  bitterness  to  drink.  The 
news  of  the  plan,  carried  out  so  secretly,  had  only  transpired 
on  the  eve  of  the  day  fixed  for  the  execution.  The  Tascherons 
had  meant  to  leave  the  place  before  the  fatal  day ;  but  the 
purchaser  of  their  property  was  a  stranger  to  the  canton,  a 
Correzien  to  whom  their  motives  were  indifferent,  and  he  on 
his  own  part  had  found  some  difficulty  in  getting  the  money 
together.  So  the  family  had  endured  the  utmost  of  their 
misery.  So  strong  was  the  feeling  of  their  disgrace  in  these 
simple  folk  who  had  never  tampered  with  conscience,  that 
grandfather  and  grandmother,  daughters  and  sons-in-law, 
father  and  mother,  and  all  who  bore  the  name  of  Tascheron, 
or  were  connected  with  them,  were  leaving  the  place.  Every 
one  in  the  commune  was  sorry  that  they  should  go,  and  the 
mayor  had  gone  to  the  cure,  entreating  him  to  use  his  influ- 
ence with  the  poor  mourners. 

As  the  law  now  stands,  the  father  is  no  longer  responsible 
for  his  son's  crime,  and  the  father's  guilt  does  not  attach  to 
his  children,  a  condition  of  things  in  keeping  with  other 
emancipations  which  have  weakened  the  paternal  power,  and 
contributed  to  the  triumph  of  that  individualism   which   is 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  103 

eating  the  heart  of  society  in  our  days.  The  thinker  who 
looks  to  the  future  sees  the  extinction  of  the  spirit  of  the 
family ;  those  who  drew  up  the  new  code  have  set  in  its  place 
equality  and  independent  opinion.  The  family  will  always 
be  the  basis  of  society ;  and  now  the  family,  as  it  used  to  be, 
exists  no  longer,  it  has  come  of  necessity  to  be  a  temporary 
arrangement,  continually  broken  up  and  reunited  only  to  be 
separated  again  ;  the  links  between  the  future  and  the  past  are 
destroyed,  the  family  of  an  older  time  has  ceased  to  exist  in 
France.  Those  who  proceeded  to  the  demolition  of  the  old 
social  edifice  were  logical  when  they  decided  that  each  mem- 
ber of  the  family  should  inherit  equally,  lessening  the  authority 
of  the  father,  making  of  each  child  the  head  of  a  new  house- 
hold, suppressing  great  responsibilities;  but  is  the  social 
system  thus  re-edified  as  solid  a  structure,  with  its  laws  of 
yesterday  unproved  by  long  experience,  as  the  old  monarchy 
was  in  spite  of  its  abuses?  With  the  solidarity  of  the  family, 
society  has  lost  that  elemental  force  which  Montesquieu  dis- 
covered and  called  "honor."  Society  has  isolated  its  mem- 
bers the  better  to  govern  them,  and  has  divided  in  order  to 
weaken.  The  social  system  reigns  over  so  many  units,  an 
aggregation  of  so  many  ciphers,  piled  up  like  grains  of  wheat 
iii  a  heap.  Can  the  general  welfare  take  the  place  of  the 
welfare  of  the  family  ?  Time  holds  the  answer  to  this  great 
enigma.  And  yet — the  old  order  still  exists,  it  is  so  deeply 
rooted  that  you  find  it  most  alive  among  the  people.  It  is 
still  an  active  force  in  remote  districts  where  "prejudice,"  as 
it  is  called,  likewise  exists  ;  in  old-world  nooks  where  all  the 
members  of  a  family  suffer  for  the  crime  of  one,  and  the  chil- 
dren for  the  sins  of  their  fathers. 

It  was  this  belief  which  made  their  own  countryside  intoler- 
able to  the  Tascherons.  Their  profoundly  religious  natures  had 
brought  them  to  the  church  that  morning,  for  how  was  it  pos- 
sible to  stay  away  when  the  mass  was  said  for  their  son,  and 
prayer  offered   that  God  might   bring   him  to  a  repentance 


104  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

which  should  reopen  eternal  life  to  him  ?  and,  moreover,  must 
they  not  take  leave  of  the  village  altar?  But,  for  all  that, 
their  plans  were  made;  and  when  the  cure,  who  followed 
them,  entered  the  principal  house,  he  found  the  bundles  made 
up,  ready  for  the  journey.  The  purchaser  was  waiting  with 
the  money.  The  notary  had  just  made  out  the  receipt.  Out 
in  the  yard,  in  front  of  the  house,  stood  a  country  cart  ready 
to  take  the  old  people  and  the  money  and  Jean-Francois' 
mother.  The  rest  of  the  family  meant  to  set  out  on  foot  that 
night. 

The  young  abbe  entered  the  room  on  the  ground  floor 
where  the  whole  family  were  assembled,  just  as  the  cure  of 
Montegnac  had  exhausted  all  his  eloquence.  The  two  old 
people  seemed  to  have  ceased  to  feel  from  excess  of  grief; 
they  were  crouching  on  their  bundles  in  a  corner  of  the  room, 
gazing  round  them  at  the  old  house,  which  had  been  a  family 
possession  from  father  to  son,  at  the  familiar  furniture,  at  the 
man  who  had  bought  it  all,  and  then  at  each  other,  as  who 
should  say,  "  Who  would  have  thought  that  we  should  ever 
have  come  to  this?"  For  a  long  time  past  the  old  people 
had  resigned  their  authority  to  their  son,  the  prisoner's  father; 
and  now,  like  old  kings  after  their  abdication,  they  played  the 
passive  part  of  subjects  and  children.  Tascheron  stood 
upright  listening  to  the  cure,  to  whom  he  gave  answers  in  a 
deep  voice  by  monosyllables.  He  was  a  man  of  forty-eight 
or  thereabouts,  with  a  fine  face,  such  as  served  Titian  for  his 
apostles.  It  was  a  trustworthy  face,  gravely  honest  and 
thoughtful ;  a  severe  profile,  a  nose  at  right  angles  with  the 
brows,  blue  eyes,  a  noble  forehead,  regular  features,  dark, 
crisped,  stubborn  hair,  growing  in  the  symmetrical  fashion 
which  adds  a  charm  to  a  visage  bronzed  by  a  life  of  work  in 
the  open  air — this  was  the  present  head  of  the  house.  It  was 
easy  to  see  that  the  curb's  arguments  were  shattered  against 
that  resolute  will. 

Denise  was  leaning  against  the  bread  hutch,  watching  the 


THE   CUKE   OF  MONTEGNAC.  106 

notary,  who  used  it  as  a  writing-table ;  they  had  given  him 
the  grandmother's  armchair.  The  man  who  had  bought  the 
place  sat  beside  the  scrivener.  The  two  married  sisters 
were  laying  the  cloth  for  the  last  meal  which  the  old  folk 
would  offer  or  partake  of  in  the  old  house  and  in  their  own 
country  before  they  set  out  to  live  beneath  alien  skies.  The 
men  of  the  family  half-stood,  half-sat,  propped  against  the 
large  bedstead  with  the  green  serge  curtains,  while  Tascheron's 
wife,  their  mother,  was  whisking  an  omelette  by  the  fire.  The 
grandchildren  crowded  about  the  doorway,  and  the  pur- 
chaser's family  were  outside. 

Out  of  the  window  you  could  see  the  garden,  carefully  cul- 
tivated, stocked  with  fruit  trees;  the  two  old  people  had 
planted  them — every  one.  Everything  about  them,  like  the 
old  smoke-begrimed  room  with  its  black  rafters,  seemed  to 
share  in  the  pent-up  sorrow,  which  could  be  read  in  so  many 
different  expressions  on  the  different  faces.  The  meal  was 
being  prepared  for  the  notary,  the  purchaser,  the  children, 
and  the  men  ;  neither  the  father,  nor  mother,  nor  Denise,  nor 
her  sisters  cared  to  satisfy  their  hunger,  their  hearts  were  too 
heavily  oppressed.  There  was  a  lofty  and  heart-rending 
resignation  in  this  last  performance  of  the  duties  of  country 
hospitality — the  Tascherons,  men  of  an  ancient  stock,  ended 
as  people  usually  begin,  by  doing  the  honors  of  their  house. 

The  bishop's  secretary  was  impressed  by  the  scene,  so  simple 
and  natural,  yet  so  solemn,  which  met  his  eyes  as  he  came  to 
summon  the  cure  of  Montegnac  to  do  the  bishop's  bidding. 

"  The  good  man's  son  is  still  alive,"  Gabriel  said,  address- 
ing the  cure. 

At  the  words,  which  every  one  heard  in  the  prevailing 
silence,  the  two  old  people  sprang  to  their  feet  as  if  the  trumpet 
had  sounded  for  the  last  judgment.  The  mother  dropped  her 
frying-pan  into  the  fire.  A  cry  of  joy  broke  from  Denise. 
All  the  others  seemed  to  be  turned  to  stone  in  their  dull 
amazement. 


106  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"Jean- Francois  is  pardoned 7"  The  cry  came  at  that 
moment  as  from  one  voice  from  the  whole  village,  who  rushed 
up  to  the  Tascherons'  house.     ''It  is  his  lordship  the  bishop." 

"  I  was  sure  of  his  innocence  !  "  exclaimed  the  mother. 

"The  purchase  holds  good  all  the  same,  doesn't  it?"  asked 
the  buyer,  and  the  notary  answered  him  by  a  nod. 

In  a  moment  the  Abbe  Gabriel  became  the  point  of  interest, 
all  eyes  were  fixed  on  him;  his  face  was  so  sad  that  it  was 
suspected  that  there  was  some  mistake,  but  he  could  not  bear 
to  correct  it,  and  went  out  with  the  cure.  Outside  the  house 
he  dismissed  the  crowd  by  telling  those  who  came  round 
about  him  that  there  was  no  pardon,  only  a  reprieve,  and  a 
dismayed  silence  at  once  succeeded  to  the  clamor.  Gabriel 
and  the  cure  turned  into  the  house  again,  and  saw  a  look  of 
anguish  on  all  the  faces — the  sudden  silence  in  the  village  had 
been  understood. 

"Jean-Francois  has  not  received  his  pardon,  my  friends," 
said  the  young  abb£,  seeing  that  the  blow  had  been  struck, 
"but  my  lord  bishop's  anxiety  for  his  soul  is  so  great  that  he 
has  put  off  the  execution  that  your  son  may  not  perish  to  all 
eternity  at  least." 

"Then  is  he  living?"  cried  Denise. 

The  abbe"  took  the  cure  aside  and  told  him  of  his  parish- 
ioner's impiety,  of  the  consequent  peril  to  religion,  and  what 
it  was  that  the  bishop  expected  of  the  cure  of  Montegnac. 

"  My  lord  bishop  requires  my  death,"  returned  the  cure. 
"Already  I  have  refused  to  go  to  this  unhappy  boy  when  his 
afflicted  family  asked  me.  The  meeting  and  the  scene  there 
afterwards  would  shatter  me  like  glass.  Let  every  man  do  his 
work.  The  weakness  of  my  system,  or  rather  the  oversensi- 
tiveness  of  my  nervous  organization,  makes  it  out  of  the 
question  for  me  to  fulfill  these  duties  of  our  ministry.  I  am 
still  a  country  parson  that  I  may  serve  my  like,  in  a  sphere 
where  nothing  more  is  demanded  of  me  in  a  Christian  life 
than  I  can   accomplish.     I  thought  very  carefully  over  this 


AH  1    SAVE   HIS   SOUL   AT   LEAST!' 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  107 

matter,  and  tried  to  satisfy  these  good  Tascherons  and  to  do 
my  duty  towards  this  poor  boy  of  theirs ;  but  at  the  bare 
thought  of  mounting  the  cart  with  him,  the  mere  idea  of 
being  present  while  the  preparations  for  death  were  being 
made,  a  deadly  chill  runs  through  my  veins.  No  one  would 
ask  it  of  a  mother ;  and  remember,  sir,  he  is  a  child  of  my 
poor  church " 

"Then  you  refuse  to  obey  the  bishop's  summons?"  asked 
the  Abbe  Gabriel. 

M.  Bonnet  looked  at  him. 

"  His  lordship  does  not  know  the  state  of  my  health," 
he  said,  "  nor  does  he  know  that  my  nature  rises  in  revolt 
against " 

"There  are  times  when,  like  Belzunce  at  Marseilles,  we  are 
bound  to  face  a  certain  death,"  the  Abbe  Gabriel  broke  in. 

Just  at  that  moment  the  cure  felt  that  a  hand  pulled  his 
cassock;  he  heard  sobs,  and,  turning,  saw  the  whole  family 
on  their  knees.  Old  and  young,  parents  and  children,  men 
and  women,  held  out  their  hands  to  him  imploringly ;  all  the 
voices  united  in  one  cry  as  he  showed  his  flushed  face. 

"  Ah  !  save  his  soul  at  least !  " 

It  was  the  old  grandmother  who  had  caught  at  the  skirt  of 
his  cassock  and  was  bathing  it  with  tears. 

"  I  will  obey,  sir "     No  sooner  were  the  words  uttered 

than  the  cure  was  forced  to  sit  down  ;  his  knees  trembled 
under  him.  The  young  secretary  explained  the  nature  of 
Jean-Francois'  frenzy. 

"  Do  you  think  that  the  sight  of  his  younger  sister  might 
shake  him  ?  "  he  added,  as  he  came  to  an  end. 

"Yes,  certainly,"  returned  the  cure.  "  Denise,  you  will 
go  with  us." 

"So  shall  I,"  said  the  mother. 

"No!"  shouted  the  father.  "That  boy  is  dead  to  us. 
You  know  that.     Not  one  of  us  shall  see  him." 

"Do  not  stand  in  the  way  of  his  salvation,"  said   the 


108  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

young  abbe.  "  If  you  refuse  us  the  means  of  softening  him, 
you  take  the  responsibility  of  his  soul  upon  yourself.  In  his 
present  state  his  death  may  reflect  more  discredit  on  his  family 
than  his  life." 

"  She  shall  go,"  said  the  father.  "  She  always  interfered 
when  I  tried  to  correct  my  son,  and  this  shall  be  her  punish- 
ment." 

The  Abbe  Gabriel  and  M.  Bonnet  went  back  together  to 
the  parsonage.  It  was  arranged  that  Denise  and  her  mother 
should  be  there  at  the  time  when  the  two  ecclesiastics  should 
set  out  for  Limoges.  As  they  followed  the  footpath  along  the 
outskirts  of  Upper  Montegnac,  the  younger  man  had  an 
opportunity  of  looking  more  closely  than  heretofore  in  the 
church  at  this  country  parson,  so  highly  praised  by  the  vicar- 
general.  He  was  favorably  impressed  almost  at  once  by  his 
companion's  simple,  dignified  manners,  by  the  magic  of  his 
voice,  and  by  the  words  he  spoke,  in  keeping  with  the  voice. 
The  cure  had  been  but  once  to  the  palace  since  the  bishop 
had  taken  Gabriel  de  Rastignac  as  his  secretary,  so  that  he 
had  scarcely  seen  the  favorite  destined  to  be  a  bishop  some 
day  ;  he  knew  that  the  secretary  had  great  influence,  and  yet 
in  the  dignified  kindness  of  his  manner  there  was  a  certain 
independence,  as  of  the  cure  whom  the  Church  permits  to  be 
in  some  sort  a  sovereign  in  his  own  parish. 

As  for  the  young  abbe,  his  feelings  were  so  far  from  appear- 
ing in  his  face  that  they  seemed  to  have  hardened  it  into 
severity  ;  his  expression  was  not  chilly,  it  was  glacial. 

A  man  who  could  change  the  disposition  and  manners  of  a 
whole  countryside  necessarily  possessed  some  faculty  of  ob- 
servation, and  was  more  or  less  of  a  physiognomist ;  and  even 
had  the  cure  been  wise  only  in  well-doing,  he  had  just  given 
proof  of  an  unusually  keen  sensibility.  The  coolness  with 
which  the  bishop's  secretary  met  his  advances  and  responded 
to  his  friendliness  struck  him  at  once.  He  could  only  account 
for  this  reception  by  some  secret  dissatisfaction  on  the  other's 


Tff£  CUr£  OF  MONT£GttAC.  10$ 

part,  and  looked  back  over  his  conduct,  wondering  how  he 
could  have  given  offense,  and  in  what  the  offense  lay.  There 
was  a  short  embarrassing  silence,  broken  by  the  Abbe  de 
Rastignac. 

"You  have  a  very  poor  church,  Monsieur  le  Cur6,"  he 
remarked,  aristocratic  insolence  in  his  tones  and  words. 

"It  is  too  small,"  answered  M.  Bonnet.  "For  great 
church  festivals  the  old  people  sit  on  benches  round  the 
porch,  and  the  younger  ones  stand  in  a  circle  in  the  square 
down  below;  but  they  are  so  silent  that  those  outside  can 
hear." 

Gabriel  was  silent  for  several  moments. 

"  If  the  people  are  so  devout,  why  do  you  leave  the  church 
so  bare?"  he  asked  at  length. 

"Alas!  sir,  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  spend  money  on  the 
building  when  the  poor  need  it.  The  poor  are  the  church. 
Besides,  I  should  not  fear  a  visitation  from  my  lord  bishop  at 
the  Fete-Dieu  1  Then  the  poor  give  the  church  such  things 
as  they  have  !  Did  you  notice  the  nails  along  the  walls  ? 
They  fix  a  sort  of  wire  trellis  work  to  them,  which  the  women 
cover  with  bunches  of  flowers ;  the  whole  church  is  dressed  in 
flowers,  as  it  were,  which  keep  fresh  till  the  evening.  My 
poor  church,  which  looked  so  bare  to  you,  is  adorned  like  a 
bride,  and  fragrant  with  sweet  scents  ;  the  ground  is  strewn 
with  leaves,  and  a  path  in  the  midst  for  the  passage  of  the 
Holy  Sacrament  is  carpeted  with  rose  petals.  For  that  one 
day  I  need  not  fear  comparison  with  Saint  Peter's  at  Rome. 
The  Holy  Father  has  his  gold,  and  I  my  flowers ;  to  each  his 
miracle.  Ah  !  the  township  of  Montegnac  is  poor,  but  it  is 
Catholic.  Once  upon  a  time  they  used  to  rob  travelers,  now 
any  one  who  passes  through  the  place  might  drop  a  bag  full 
of  money  here,  and  he  would  find  it  when  he  returned 
home." 

"Such  a  result  speaks  strongly  in  your  praise,"  said 
Gabriel. 


110  TBE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"I  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  answered  the  cur£, 
flushing  at  this  incisive  epigram.  "  It  has  been  brought  about 
by  the  Word  of  God  and  the  sacramental  bread." 

"  Bread  somewhat  brown,"  said  the  Abbe  Gabriel,  smiling. 

"  White  bread  is  only  suited  to  the  rich,"  said  the  cure 
humbly. 

The  abbe  took  both  M.  Bonnet's  hands  in  his  and  grasped 
them  cordially. 

"  Pardon  me,  Monsieur  le  Cure,"  he  said  ;  and  in  a  moment 
the  reconciliation  was  completed  by  a  look  in  the  beautiful 
blue  eyes  that  went  to  the  depths  of  the  cure's  soul. 

"  My  lord  bishop  recommended  me  to  put  your  patience 
and  humility  to  the  proof,  but  I  can  go  no  farther.  After  this 
little  while  I  see  how  greatly  you  have  been  wronged  by  the 
praises  of  the  Liberal  party." 

Breakfast  was  ready.  Ursule  had  spread  the  white  cloth, 
and  set  new-laid  eggs,  butter,  honey  and  fruit,  cream  and 
coffee,  among  bunches  of  flowers  on  the  old-fashioned  table 
in  the  old-fashioned  sitting-room.  The  window  that  looked 
out  upon  the  terrace  stood  open,  framed  about  with  green 
leaves.  Clematis  grew  about  the  ledge — white  starry  blossoms, 
with  tiny  sheaves  of  golden  crinkled  stamens  at  their  hearts 
to  relieve  the  white.  Jessamine  climbed  up  one  side  of  the 
window,  and  nasturtiums  on  the  other  ;  above  it,  a  trail  of 
vine,  turning  red  even  now,  made  a  rich  setting,  which  no 
sculptor  could  hope  to  render,  so  full  of  grace  was  that  lace- 
work  of  leaves  outlined  against  the  sky. 

"  You  will  find  life  here  reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,"  said 
the  cur6,  smiling,  though  his  face  did  not  belie  the  sadness  of 
his  heart.  "If  we  had  known  that  you  were  coming — and 
who  could  have  foreseen  the  events  which  have  brought  you 
here  ? — Ursule  would  have  had  some  trout  for  you  from  the 
torrent ;  there  is  a  trout-stream  in  the  forest,  and  the  fish  are 
excellent ;  but  I  am  forgetting  that  this  is  August,  and  that 
the  Gabou  will  be  dry  !     My  head  is  very  much  confused— — " 


THE  CURE   OF  MONTEGNAC.  Ill 

"Are  you  very  fond  of  this  place?  "  asked  the  abbe. 

"  Yes.  If  God  permits,  I  shall  die  cure  of  Montegnac. 
I  could  wish  that  other  and  distinguished  men,  who  have 
thought  to  do  better  by  becoming  lay  philanthropists,  had 
taken  this  way  of  mine.  Modern  philanthropy  is  the  bane 
of  society  ;  the  principles  of  the  Catholic  religion  are  the  one 
remedy  for  the  evils  whichJeaven  the  body  social.  Instead  of 
describing  the  disease  and  making  it  worse  by  jeremiads,  each 
one  should  have  put  his  hand  to  the  plough  and  entered  God's 
vineyard  as  a  simple  laborer.  My  task  is  far  from  being  ended 
here,  sir ;  it  is  not  enough  to  have  raised  them  oral  standard 
of  the  people,  who  lived  in  a  frightful  state  of  irreligion  when 
I  first  came  here  ;  I  would  fain  die  among  a  generation  fully 
convinced." 

"You  have  only  done  your  duty/'  the  younger  man 
retorted  drily  ;  he  felt  a  pang  of  jealousy  in  his  heart. 

The  other  gave  him  a  keen  glance. 

"Is  this  yet  another  test?"  he  seemed  to  say — but  aloud 
he  answered  humbly,  "Yes.  I  wish  every  hour  of  my  life," 
he  added,  "that  every  one  in  the  kingdom  would  do  his 
duty."        , 

The  deep  underlying  significance  of  those  words  was  still 
further  increased  by  the  tone  in  which  they  were  spoken.  It 
was  clear  that  here,  in  this  year  1829,  was  a  priest  of  great 
intellectual  power,  great  likewise  in  the  simplicity  of  his  life  ; 
who,  though  he  did  not  set  up  his  own  judgment  against  that 
of  his  superiors,  saw  none  the  less  clearly  whither  the  church 
and  the  monarchy  were  going. 

When  the  mother  and  daughter  had  come,  the  abbe  left 
the  parsonage  and  went  down  to  see  if  the  horses  had  been 
put  in.  He  was  very  impatient  to  return  to  Limoges.  A  few 
minutes  later  he  returned  to  say  that  all  was  in  readiness  for 
their  departure,  and  the  four  set  out  on  their  journey.  Every 
creature  in  Montegnac  stood  in  the  road  about  the  posthouse 
to  see  them  go.     The  condemned  man's  mother  and  sister 


IIS  THE  COUNTRY  PARSOtf. 

said  not  a  word ;  and  as  for  the  two  ecclesiastics,  there  were 
so  many  topics  to  be  avoided  that  conversation  was  difficult, 
and  they  could  neither  appear  indifferent  nor  try  to  take  a 
•cheerful  tone.  Still  endeavoring  to  discover  some  neutral 
ground  for  their  talk  as  they  traveled  on,  the  influences  of  the 
great  plain  seemed  to  prolong  the  melancholy  silence. 

"  What  made  you  accept  the  position  of  an  ecclesiastic?  " 
Gabriel  asked  at  last  out  of  idle  curiosity,  as  the  carriage 
turned  into  the  high-road. 

"  I  have  never  regarded  my  office  as  a  '  position,'  "  the  cur6 
answered  simply.  "  I  cannot  understand  how  any  one  can 
take  holy  orders  for  any  save  the  one  indefinable  and  all- 
powerful  reason — a  vocation.  I  know  that  not  a  few  have 
become  laborers  in  the  great  vineyard  with  hearts  worn  out 
in  the  service  of  the  passions ;  men  who  have  loved  without 
hope,  or  whose  hopes  have  been  disappointed  ;  men  whose 
lives  were  blighted  when  they  laid  the  wife  or  the  woman 
they  loved  in  the  grave  ;  men  grown  weary  of  life  in  a  world 
where  in  these  times  nothing,  not  even  sentiments,  are  stable 
and  secure,  where  doubt  makes  sport  of  the  sweetest  certain- 
ties, and  belief  is  called  superstition. 

"  Some  leave  political  life  in  times  when  to  be  in  power 
seems  to  be  a  sort  of  expiation,  when  those  who  are  governed 
look  on  obedience  as  an  unfortunate  necessity;  and  very  many 
leave  a  battlefield  without  standards  where  powers,  by  nature 
opposed,  combine  to  defeat  and  dethrone  the  right.  I  am 
not  supposing  that  any  man  can  give  himself  to  God  for  what 
he  may  gain.  There  are  some  who  appear  to  see  in  the  clergy 
a  means  of  regenerating  our  country;  but,  according  to  my 
dim  lights,  the  patriot  priest  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  The 
priest  should  belong  to  God  alone. 

"  I  had  no  wish  to  offer  to  our  Father,  who  yet  accepts  all 
things,  a  broken  heart  and  an  enfeebled  will ;  I  gave  myself 
to  Him  whole  and  entire.  It  was  a  touching  fancy  in  the  old 
pagan  religion  which  brought  the  victim  crowned  with  flowers 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  113 

to  the  temple  of  the  gods  for  sacrifice.  There  is  something 
in  that  custom  that  has  always  appealed  to  me.  A  sacrifice  is 
nothing  unless  it  is  made  graciously.  So  the  story  of  my  life 
is  very  simple,  there  is  not  the  least  touch  of  romance  in  it. 
Still,  if  you  would  like  to  hear  a  full  confession,  I  will  tell 
you  all  about  myself. 

"  My  family  are  well-to-do  and  almost  wealthy.  My  father, 
a  self-made  man,  is  hard  and  inflexible ;  he  deals  the  same 
measure  to  himself  as  to  his  wife  and  children.  I  have  never 
seen  the  faintest  smile  on  his  lips.  With  a  hand  of  iron,  a 
brow  of  bronze,  and  an  energetic  nature  at  once  sullen  and 
morose,  he  crushed  us  all — wife  and  children,  clerks  and  ser- 
vants, beneath  a  savage  tyranny.  I  think  (I  speak  for  myself 
alone)  that  I  could  have  borne  the  life  if  the  pressure  brought 
to  bear  on  us  had  been  even  ;  but  he  was  crotchety  and 
changeable,  and  this  fitfulness  made  it  unbearable.  We  never 
knew  whether  we  had  done  right  or  wrong,  and  the  horrible 
suspense  in  which  we  lived  at  home  becomes  intolerable  in 
domestic  life.  It  is  pleasanter  to  be  out  in  the  streets  than  in 
the  house.  Even  as  it  was,  if  I  had  been  alone  at  home,  I 
could  have  borne  all  this  without  a  murmur ;  but  there  was 
my  mother,  whom  I  loved  passionately ;  the  sight  of  her  mis- 
ery and  the  continual  bitterness  of  her  life  broke  my  heart ; 
and  if,  as  sometimes  happened,  I  surprised  her  in  tears,  I  was 
beside  myself  with  rage.  I  was  sent  to  school ;  and  those 
years,  usually  a  time  of  hardship  and  drudgery,  were  a  sort  of 
golden  age  for  me.  I  dreaded  the  holidays.  My  mother  her- 
self was  glad  to  come  to  see  me  at  the  school. 

"  When  I  had  finished  my  humanities,  I  went  home  and 
entered  my  father's  office,  but  I  could  only  stay  there  a  few 
months;  youth  was  strong  in  me,  my  mind  might  have  given 
way. 

"One  dreary  autumn  evening  my  mother  and  I  took  a 
walk  by  ourselves  along  the  Boulevard  Bourdon,  then  one  of 
the  most  depressing  spots  in  Paris,  and  there  I  opened  my 


114  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

heart  to  her.  I  said  that  I  saw  no  possible  life  for  me  save  in 
the  church.  So  long  as  my  father  lived  I  was  bound  to  be 
thwarted  in  my  tastes,  my  ideas,  even  in  my  affections.  If  I 
adopted  the  priest's  cassock,  he  would  be  compelled  to 
respect  me,  and  in  this  way  I  might  become  a  tower  of 
strength  to  the  family  should  occasion  call  for  it.  My  mother 
cried  bitterly.  At  that  very  time  my  older  brother  had 
enlisted  as  a  common  soldier,  driven  out  of  the  house  by  the 
causes  which  had  decided  my  vocation.  (He  became  a 
general  afterwards,  and  fell  in  the -battle  of  Leipsic.)  I 
pointed  out  to  my  mother  as  a  way  of  salvation  for  her  that 
she  should  marry  my  sister  (as  soon  as  she  should  be  old 
enough  to  settle  in  life)  to  a  man  with  plenty  of  character, 
and  look  to  this  new  family  for  support. 

"So  in  1807,  under  the  pretext  of  escaping  the  conscrip- 
tion without  expense  to  my  father,  and  at  the  same  time  de- 
claring my  vocation,  I  entered  the  Seminary  of  Saint-Sulpice 
at  the  age  of  nineteen.  Within  those  famous  oLd  walls  I 
found  happiness  and  peace,  troubled  only  by  thoughts  of 
what  my  mother  and  sister  must  be  enduring.  Things  had 
doubtless  grown  worse  and  worse  at  home,  for  when  they  came 
to  see  me  they  upheld  me  in  my  determination.  Initiated, 
it  may  be,  by  my  own  pain  into  the  secret  of  charity,  as  the 
great  apostle  has  defined  it  in  his  sublime  epistle,  I  longed  to 
bind  the  wounds  of  the  poor  and  suffering  in  some  out-of-the- 
way  spot ;  and  thereafter  to  prove,  if  God  deigned  to  bless  my 
efforts,  that  the  Catholic  religion,  as  put  in  practice  by  man, 
is  the  one  true,  good,  and  noble  civilizing  agent  on  earth. 

**  During  those  last  days  of  my  diaconate,  grace  doubtless 
enlightened  me.  Fully  and  freely  I  forgave  my  father,  for  I 
saw  that  through  him  I  had  found  my  real  vocation.  But  my 
mother — in  spite  of  a  long  and  tender  letter,  in  which  I  ex- 
plained this,  and  showed  how  the  trace  of  the  finger  of  God 
was  visible  throughout — my  mother  shed  many  tears  when  she 
saw  my  hair  fall  under  the  scissors  of  the  church  ;    for  she 


THE   CURE    OP  MONTEGNAC.  115 

knew  how  many  joys  I  was  renouncing,  and  did  not  know  the 
hidden  glories  to  which  I  aspired.  Women  are  so  tender- 
hearted. When  at  last  I  was  God's,  I  felt  an  infinite  peace. 
All  the  cravings,  the  vanities,  and  cares  that  vex  so  many 
souls  fell  away  from  me.  I  thought  that  heaven  would  have 
a  care  for  me  as  for  a  vessel  of  its  own.  I  went  forth  into  a 
world  from  which  all  fear  was  driven  out,  where  the  future 
was  sure,  where  everything  is  the  work  of  God — even  the 
silence.  This  quietness  of  soul  is  one  of  the  gifts  of  grace. 
My  mother  could  not  imagine  what  it  was  to  take  a  church  for 
a  bride  ;  nevertheless,  when  she  saw  that  I  looked  serene  and 
happy,  she  was  happy.  After  my  ordination  I  came  to  pay  a 
visit  to  some  of  my  father's  relatives  in  Limousin,  and  one  of 
these  by  accident  spoke  of  the  state  of  things  in  the  Mon- 
tegnac  district.  With  a  sudden  illumination  like  lightning 
the  thought  flashed  through  my  inmost  soul — '  Behold  thy 
vine !  '  And  I  came  here.  So,  as  you  see,  sir,  my  story  is 
quite  simple  and  uninteresting." 

As  he  spoke,  Limoges  appeared  in  the  rays  of  the  sunset, 
and  at  the  sight  the  two  women  could  not  keep  back  their 
tears. 

Meanwhile  the  young  man  whom  love  in  its  separate  guises 
had  come  to  find,  the  object  of  so  much  outspoken  curiosity, 
hypocritical  sympathy,  and  very  keen  anxiety,  was  lying  on 
his  prison  mattress  in  the  condemned  cell.  A  spy  at  the  door 
was  on  the  watch  for  any  words  that  might  escape  him  waking 
or  sleeping,  or  in  one  of  his  wild  fits  of  fury  ;  so  bent  was 
justice  upon  coming  at  the  truth,  and  on  discovering  Jean- 
Francois'  accomplice  as  well  as  the  stolen  money,  by  every 
means  that  the  wit  of  man  could  devise. 

The  des  Vanneaulx  had  the  police  in  their  interest ;  the 
police  spies  watched  through  the  absolute  silence.  Whenever 
the  man  told  off  for  this  duty  looked  through  the  hole  made 
for  the  purpose,  he  always  saw  the  prisoner  in  the  same  attU 


116  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

tude,  bound  in  his  strait  waistcoat,  his  head  tied  up  by  a 
leather  strap  to  prevent  him  from  tearing  the  stuff  and  the 
thongs  with  his  teeth.  Jean-Francois  lay  staring  at  the  ceil- 
ing with  a  fixed  desperate  gaze,  his  eyes  glowed,  and  seemed 
as  if  they  were  reddened  by  the  full-pulsed  tide  of  life  sent 
surging  through  him  by  terrible  thoughts.  It  was  as  if  an 
antique  statue  of  Prometheus  had  become  a  living  man,  with 
the  thought  of  some  lost  joy  gnawing  his  heart;  so  when  the 
second  avocat  general  came  to  see  him,  the  visitor  could  not 
help  showing  his  surprise  at  a  character  so  dogged.  At  sight 
of  any  human  being  admitted  into  his  cell,  Jean-Francois 
flew  into  a  rage  which  exceeded  everything  in  the  doctor's 
experience  of  such  affections.  As  soon  as  he  heard  the  key 
turn  in  the  lock  or  the  bolts  drawn  in  the  heavily-ironed  door, 
a  light  froth  came  to  his  lips. 

In  person,  Jean-Francois  Tascheron,  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  was  short  but  well  made.  His  hair  was  stiff  and  crisp, 
and  grew  rather  low  on  his  forehead,  signs  of  great  energy. 
The  clear,  brilliant,  yellow  eyes,  set  rather  too  close  together, 
gave  him  something  the  look  of  a  bird  of  prey.  His  face  was 
of  the  round  dark-skinned  type  common  in  Central  France. 
One  of  his  characteristics  confirmed  Lavater's  assertion  that 
the  front  teeth  overlap  in  those  predestined  to  be  murderers ; 
but  the  general  expression  of  his  face  spoke  of  honesty,  of 
simple  warm-heartedness  of  disposition — it  would  have  been 
nothing  extraordinary  if  a  woman  had  loved  such  a  man  pas- 
sionately. The  lines  of  the  fresh  mouth,  with  its  dazzling 
white  teeth,  were  gracious ;  there  was  that  peculiar  shade  ia 
the  scarlet  of  the  lips  which  indicates  ferocity  held  in  check, 
and  frequently  a  temperament  which  thirsts  for  pleasure  and 
demands  free  scope  for  indulgence.  There  was  nothing  of 
the  workman's  coarseness  about  him.  To  the  women  who 
watched  his  trial  it  seemed  evident  that  it  was  a  woman  who 
had  brought  flexibility  and  softness  into  the  fibre  inured  to 
toil,  the  look  of  distinction  into  the  face  of  a  son  of  the 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  117 

fields,  and  grace  into  his  bearing.  Women  recognize  the 
traces  of  love  in  a  man,  and  men  are  quick  to  see  in  a  woman 
whether  (to  use  a  colloquial  phrase),  "  love  has  passed  that 
way." 

That  evening  Jean-Francois  heard  the  sound  as  the  bolts 
were  withdrawn  and  the  key  was  thrust  into  the  lock ;  he 
turned  his  head  quickly  with  the  terrible  smothered  growl 
with  which  his  fits  of  fury  began ;  but  he  trembled  violently 
when  through  the  soft  dusk  he  made  out  the  forms  of  his 
mother  and  sister,  and  behind  the  two  dear  faces  another — 
the  cure  of  Montegnac. 

"  So  this  is  what  those  barbarous  wretches  held  in  store  for 
me!"  he  said,  and  closed  his  eyes. 

Denise,  with  her  prison  experience,  was  suspicious  of  every 
least  thing  in  the  room ;  the  spy  had  hidden  himself,  mean- 
ing, no  doubt,  to  return  ;  she  fled  to  her  brother,  laid  her 
tear-stained  face  against  his,  and  said  in  his  ear,  "  Can  they 
hear  what  we  say  ?  " 

"I  should  rather  think  they  can,  or  they  would  not  have 
sent  you  here,"  he  answered  aloud.  "  I  have  asked  as  a 
favor  this  long  while  that  I  might  not  see  any  of  my  family." 

"What  a  way  they  have  treated  him  !  "  cried  the  mother, 
turning  to  the  cure.  "  My  poor  boy  !  my  poor  boy  !  "  She 
sank  down  on  the  foot  of  the  mattress,  and  hid  her  face  in 
the  priest's  cassock.  The  cure  stood  upright  beside  her.  "I 
cannot  bear  to  see  him  bound  and  tied  up  like  that  and  put 
into  that  sack " 

"  If  Jean  will  promise  me  to  be  good  and  make  no  attempt 
on  his  life,  and  to  behave  well  while  we  are  with  him,  I  will 
ask  for  leave  to  unbind  him  ;  but  I  shall  suffer  for  the  slightest 
infraction  of  his  promise." 

"I  have  such  a  craving  to  stretch  myself  out  and  move 
freely,  dear  M.  Bonnet,"  "said  the  condemned  man,  his  eyes 
filling  with  *ears,  "  that  I  give  you  my  word  I  will  do  as  you 
wish." 

R 


118  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

The  cure  went  out,  the  gaoler  came,  and  the  strait  waist- 
coat was  taken  off. 

"You  are  not  going  to  kill  me  this  evening,  are  you?" 
asked  the  turnkey. 

Jean  made  no  answer. 

"  Poor  brother  !  "  said  Denise,  bringing  out  a  basket,  which 
had  been  strictly  searched,  "there  are  one  or  two  things  here 
that  you  are  fond  of;  here,  of  course,  they  grudge  you  every 
morsel  you  eat." 

She  brought  out  fruit  gathered  as  soon  as  she  knew  that  she 
might  see  her  brother  in  prison,  and  a  cake  which  her  mother 
had  put  aside  at  once.  This  thoughtfulness  of  theirs,  which 
recalled  old  memories,  his  sister's  voice  and  movements,  the 
presence  of  his  mother  and  the  cure — all  combined  to  bring 
about  a  reaction  in  Jean.  He  burst  into  tears,  and  for  a  mo- 
ment was  completely  overcome. 

"Ah!  Denise,"  he  said,  "I  have  not  made  a  meal  these 
six  months  past ;  I  have  eaten  because  hunger  drove  me  to 
eat,  that  is  all." 

Mother  and  daughter  went  out  and  returned,  and  came  and 
went.  The  housewifely  instinct  of  seeing  to  a  man's  comfort 
put  heart  into  them,  and  at  last  they  set  supper  before  their 
poor  darling.  The  people  of  the  prison  helped  them  in  this, 
having  received  orders  to  do  all  in  their  power  compatible 
with  the  safe  custody  of  the  condemned  man.  The  des  Van- 
neaulx,  with  unkindly  kindness,  had  done  their  part  towards 
securing  the  comfort  of  the  man  in  whose  power  their  heritage 
lay.  So  Jean  by  these  means  was  to  know  a  last  gleam  of 
family  happiness — happiness  overshadowed  by  the  sombre 
gloom  of  the  prison  and  death. 

"  Was  my  appeal  rejected  ?  "  he  asked  M.  Bonnet. 

"Yes,  my  boy.  There  is  nothing  left  to  you  now  but  to 
make  an  end  worthy  of  a  Christian.  This  life  of  ours  is  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  life  which  awaits  us;  you  must 
think  of  your  happiness  in  eternity.     Your  account  with  men 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  119 

is  settled  by  the  forfeit  of  your  life,  but  God  requires  more,  a 
life  is  too  small  a  thing  for  Him." 

"Forfeit  my  life ? Ah,  you  do  not  know  all  that  I 

must  leave  behind." 

Denise  looked  at  her  brother,  as  if  to  remind  him  that  pru- 
dence was  called  for  even  in  matters  of  religion. 

"  Let  us  say  nothing  of  that,"  he  went  on,  eating  fruit  with 
an  eagerness  that  denoted  a  fierce  and  restless  fire  within. 
"When  must  I ?" 

11  No! no/  nothing  of  that  before  me  !  "  cried  the  mother. 

"  I  should  be  easier  if  I  knew,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice, 
turning  to  the  cure. 

"  The  same  as  ever!  "  exclaimed  M.  Bonnet,  and  he  bent 
to  say  in  Jean's  ear — "  If  you  make  your  peace  with  God  to- 
night, and  your  repentance  permits  me  to  give  you  absolution, 
it  shall  be  to-morrow."  Aloud  he  added,  "We  have  already 
gained  something  by  calming  you." 

At  these  last  words,  Jean  grew  white  to  the  lips,  his  eyes 
contracted  with  a  heavy  scowl,  his  features  quivered  with  the 
coming  storm  of  rage. 

"  What,  am  I  calm  ?  "  he  asked  himself.  Luckily  his  eyes 
met  the  tearful  eyes  of  his  sister  Denise,  and  he  regained  the 
mastery  over  himself. 

"Ah,  well,"  he  said,  looking  at  the  cure,  "I  could  not 
listen  to  any  one  but  you.  They  knew  well  how  to  tame  me," 
and  he  suddenly  dropped  his  head  on  his  mother's  shoulder. 

"Listen,  dear,"  his  mother  said,  weeping,  "our  dear  M. 
Bonnet  is  risking  his  own  life  by  undertaking  to  be  with  you 
on  the  way  to" — she  hesitated,  and  then  finished — "to 
eternal  life." 

And  she  lowered  Jean's  head  and  held  it  for  a  few  moments 
on  her  heart. 

"  Will  he  go  with  me?"  asked  Jean,  looking  at  the  cure, 
who  took  it  upon  himself  to  bow  his  head.  "  Very  well,  I  will 
listen  to  him.     I  will  do  everything  that  he  requires  of  me." 


120  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"Promise  me  that  you  will,"  said  Denise,  "for  your  soul 
must  be  saved  ;  that  is  what  we  are  all  thinking  of.  And 
then — would  you  have  it  said  in  Limoges  and  all  the  country 
round  that  a  Tascheron  could  not  die  like  a  man  ?  After  all, 
just  think  that  all  that  you  lose  here  you  may  find  again  in 
heaven,  where  forgiven  souls  will  meet  again." 

This  preternatural  effort  parched  the  heroic  girl's  throat. 
Like  her  mother,  she  was  silent,  but  she  had  won  the  victory. 
The  criminal,  hitherto  frantic  that  justice  had  snatched  away 
his  cup  of  bliss,  was  thrilled  with  the  sublime  doctrine  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  expressed  so  artlessly  by  his  sister.  Every 
woman,  even  a  peasant-girl  like  Denise  Tascheron,  possesses 
at  need  this  tender  tact  ;  does  not  every  woman  love  to  think 
that  love  is  eternal?  Denise  had  touched  two  responsive 
chords.  Awakened  pride  roused  other  qualities  numbed  by 
such  utter  misery  and  stunned  by  despair.  Jean  took  his 
sister's  hand  in  his  and  kissed  it,  and  held  her  to  his  heart  in 
a  manner  profoundly  significant ;  tenderly,  but  in  a  mighty 
grasp. 

"There,"  he  said,  "everything  must  be  given  up!  That 
was  my  last  heart-throb,  my  last  thought — intrusted  to  you, 
Denise."  And  he  gave  her  such  a  look  as  a  man  gives  at 
some  solemn  moment,  when  he  strives  to  impress  his  whole 
soul  on  another  soul. 

A  whole  last  testament  lay  in  the  words  and  the  thoughts ; 
the  mother  and  sister,  the  cure  and  Jean,  understood  so  well 
that  these  were  mute  bequests  to  be  faithfully  executed  and 
loyally  demanded  that  they  turned  away  their  faces  to  hide 
their  tears  and  the  thoughts  that  might  be  read  in  their  eyes. 
Those  few  words,  spoken  in  the  death-agony  of  passion,  were 
the  farewell  to  fatherhood  and  all  that  was  sweetest  on  earth 
— the  earnest  of  a  Catholic  renunciation  of  the  things  of  earth. 
The  cure,  awed  by  the  majesty  of  human  nature,  by  all  its 
greatness  even  in  sin,  measured  the  force  of  this  mysterious 
passion  by  the  enormity  of  the  crime,  and  raised  his  eyes  as 


THE  CURE   OF  MONTEGjSTAC.  121 

if  to  entreat  God's  mercy.  In  that  action  the  touching  con- 
solation— the  infinite  tenderness  of  the  Catholic  faith — was 
revealed — a  religion  that  shows  itself  so  human,  so  loving,  by 
the  hand  stretched  down  to  teach  mankind  the  laws  of  a 
higher  world,  so  awful,  so  divine,  by  the  hand  held  out  to 
guide  him  to  heaven.  It  was  Denise  who  had  just  discovered 
to  the  cure,  in  this  mysterious  manner,  the  spot  where  the 
rock  would  yield  the  streams  of  repentance.  Suddenly  Jean 
uttered  a  blood-curdling  cry,  like  some  hyena  caught  by  the 
hunters.     Memories  had  awakened. 

"No!  no!  no!"  he  cried,  falling  upon  his  knees.  "I 
want  to  live  !  Mother,  take  my  place.  Change  clothes  with 
me.  I  could  escape  !  Have  pity !  Have  pity.  Go  to  the 
King  and  tell  him " 

He  stopped  short,  a  horrible  sound  like  the  growl  of  a  wild 
beast  broke  from  him  ;  he  clutched  fiercely  at  the  cure's 
cassock. 

"  Go,"  M.  Bonnet  said  in  a  low  voice,  turning  to  the  two 
women,  who  were  quite  overcome  by  this  scene.  Jean  heard 
the  word,  and  lifted  his  head.  He  looked  up  at  his  mother 
and  sister,  and  kissed  their  feet. 

"  Let  us  say  good-bye,"  he  said.  "  Do  not  come  back  any 
more.  Leave- me  alone  with  M.  Bonnet;  and  do  not  be 
anxious  about  me  now,"  he  added,  as  he  clasped  his  mother 
and  sister  in  a  tight  embrace,  in  which  he  seemed  as  though 
he  would  fain  put  all  the  life  that  was  in  him. 

"  How  can  any  one  go  through  all  this  and  live  ?  "  asked 
Denise  as  they  reached  the  wicket. 

It  was  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  they  sep- 
arated. The  Abbe  de  Rastignac  was  waiting  at  the  gate  of 
the  prison,  and  asked  the  two  women  for  news. 

"  He  will  make  his  peace  with  God,"  said  Denise.  "  If  he 
has  not  repented  already,  repentance  is  near  at  hand." 

A  few  minutes  later  the  bishop  learned  that  the  Church 
would  triumph  in  this  matter,  and  that  the  condemned  man 


122  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

would  go  to  his  execution  with  the  most  edifying  religious 
sentiments.  The  public  prosecutor  was  with  his  lordship, 
who  expressed  a  wish  to  see  the  cure.  It  was  midnight  before 
M.  Bonnet  came.  The  Abbe  Gabriel,  who  had  been  going 
to  and  fro  between  the  palace  and  the  prison,  considered  that 
the  bishop's  carriage  ought  to  be  sent  for  him,  for  the  poor 
man  was  so  exhausted  that  he  could  scarcely  stand.  The 
thought  of  to-morrow's  horrible  journey,  the  anguish  of  soul 
which  he  had  witnessed,  the  full  and  entire  repentance  of  this 
member  of  his  flock,  who  broke  down  completely  at  last 
when  the  great  forecast  of  eternity  was  put  before  him — all 
these  things  had  combined  to  wear  out  M.  Bonnet's  strength, 
for  with  his  nervous  temperament  and  electric  swiftness  of 
apprehension,  he  was  quick  to  feel  the  sorrows  of  others  as  if 
they  were  his  own. 

Souls  like  this  beautiful  soul  are  so  open  to  receive  the  im- 
pressions, the  sorrows,  passions,  and  sufferings  of  those  towards 
whom  they  are  drawn,  that  they  feel  the  pain  as  if  it  were  in 
very  truth  their  own,  and  this  in  a  manner  which  is  torture  ; 
for  their  clearer  eyes  can  measure  the  whole  extent  of  the  mis- 
fortune in  a  way  impossible  to  those  blinded  by  the  egoism  of 
love  or  paroxysms  of  grief.  In  this  respect  such  a  confessor 
as  M.  Bonnet  is  an  artist  who  feels,  instead  of  an  artist  who 
judges. 

In  the  drawing-room  at  the  palace,  where  the  two  vicars- 
general,  the  public  prosecutor,  and  M.  de  Granville,  and  the 
Abbe"  de  Rastignac  were  waiting,  it  dawned  upon  M.  Bonnet 
that  he  was  expected  to  bring  news. 

"Monsieur  le  Cure,"  the  bishop  began,  "have  you  ob- 
tained any  confessions  with  which  you  may  in  confidence 
enlighten  justice  without  failing  in  your  duty  ?" 

"  Before  I  gave  absolution  to  that  poor  lost  child,  my  lord, 
I  was  not  content  that  his  repentance  should  be  as  full  and 
entire  as  the  Church  could  require ;  I  still  further  insisted  on 
the  restitution  of  the  money." 


THE  CURE   OF  MONTEGNAC.  123 

"I came  here  to  the  palace  about  that  restitution,"  said  the 
public  prosecutor.  "  Some  light  will  be  thrown  on  obscure 
points  in  the  case  by  the  way  in  which  it  is  made.  He  cer- 
tainly has  accomplices " 

•''With  the  interests  of  man's  justice  I  have  no  concern," 
the  cure  said.  "  I  do  not  know  how  or  where  the  restitution 
will  be  made,  but  made  it  will  be.  When  my  lord  bishop 
summoned  me  here  to  one  of  my  own  parishioners,  he  re- 
placed me  in  the  exact  conditions  which  give  a  cure  in  his 
own  parish  the  rights  which  a  bishop  exercises  in  his  diocese 
— ecclesiastical  obedience  and  discipline  apart." 

"  Quite  right,"  said  the  bishop.  "  But  the  point  is  to 
obtain  a  voluntary  confession  before  justice  from  the  con- 
demned man." 

"  My  mission  was  simply  to  bring  a  soul  to  God,"  returned 
M.  Bonnet. 

M.  de  Grancour  shrugged  his  shoulders  slightly,  and  the 
Abbe  Dutheil  nodded  approval. 

"  Tascheron,  no  doubt,  wants  to  screen  some  one  whom 
a  restitution  would  identify,"  said  the  public  prosecutor. 

"  Monsieur,"  retorted  the  cure,  "I  know  absolutely  noth- 
ing which  might  either  confirm  or  contradict  your  conjecture; 
and,  moreover,  the  secrets  of  the  confessional  are  inviolable." 

"  So  the  restitution  will  be  made?"  asked  the  man  of  law. 

"  Yes,  monsieur,"  answered  the  man  of  God. 

"  That  is  enough  for  me,"  said  the  public  prosecutor.  He 
relied  upon  the  cleverness  of  the  police  to  find  and  follow  up 
any  clue,  as  if  passion  and  personal  interest  were  not  keener- 
witted  than  any  detective. 

Two  days  later,  on  a  market-day,  Jean-Francois  Tascheron 
went  to  his  death  in  a  manner  which  left  all  pious  and  politic 
souls  nothing  to  desire.  His  humility  and  piety  were  exem- 
plary ;  he  kissed  with  fervor  the  crucifix  which  M.  Bonnet 
held  out  to    him  with    trembling   hands.     The    unfortunate 


124  THE   COUNTRY  PARSOM. 

man  was  closely  scanned ;  all  eyes  were  on  the  watch  to 
see  the  direction  his  glances  might  take  ;  would  he  look  up 
at  one  of  the  houses,  or  gaze  on  some  face  in  the  crowd  ? 
His  discretion  was  complete  and  inviolable.  He  met  his 
death  like  a  Christian,  penitent  and  forgiven. 

The  poor  cure  of  Montegnac  was  taken  away  unconscious 
from  the  foot  of  the  scaffold,  though  he  had  not  so  much  as 
set  eyes  on  the  fatal  machine. 

The  next  day  at  nightfall,  three  leagues  away  from  Limoges, 
out  on  the  high-road,  and  in  a  lonely  spot,  Denise  Tascheron 
suddenly  stopped.  Exhausted  though  she  was  with  physical 
weariness  and  sorrow,  she  begged  her  father  to  allow  her  to 
go  back  to  Limoges  with  Louis-Marie  Tascheron,  one  of  her 
brothers. 

"  What  more  do  you  want  to  do  in  that  place?"  her  father 
asked  sharply,  raising  his  eyebrows,  and  frowning. 

"  We  have  not  only  to  pay  the  lawyer,  father,"  she  said  in 
his  ear;  "  there  is  something  else.  The  money  that  he  hid 
must  be  given  back." 

"That  is  only  right,"  said  the  rigorously  honest  man, 
fumbling  in  a  leather  purse  which  he  carried  about  him. 

'?  No,"  Denise  said  swiftly,  "  he  is  your  son  no  longer;  and 
those  who  blessed,  not  those  who  cursed  him,  ought  to  pay  the 
lawyer's  fees." 

"  We  will  wait  for  you  at  Havre?  "  her  father  said. 

Denise  and  her  brother  crept  into  the  town  again  before  it 
was  day.  Though  the  police  learned  later  on  that  two  of  the 
Tascherons  had  come  back,  they  never  could  discover  their 
lodging.  It  was  near  four  o'clock  when  Denise  and  her 
brother  went  to  the  higher  end  of  the  town,  stealing  along 
close  to  the  walls.  The  poor  girl  dared  not  look  up,  lest  the 
eyes  which  should  meet  hers  had  seen  her  brother's  head  fall. 
First  of  all,  she  had  sought  out  M.  Bonnet,  and  he,  unwell 
though  he  was,  had  consented  to  act  as  Denise's  father  and 


THE    CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  125 

guardian  for  the  time  being.  With  him  they  went  to  the 
barrister,  who  lived  in  the  Rue  de  la  Comedie. 

"  Good-day,  poor  children,"  the  lawyer  began,  with  a  bow 
to  M.  Bonnet.  "  How  can  I  be  of  use  to  you?  Perhaps  you 
want  me  to  make  application  for  your  brother's  body." 

"No,  sir,"  said  Denise,  her  tears  flowing  at  the  thought, 
which  had  not  occurred  to  her;  "  I  have  come  to  pay  our 
debt  to  you,  in  so  far  as  money  can  repay  an  eternal  debt." 

"Sit  down  a  moment,"  said  the  lawyer,  seeing  that  Denise 
and  the  cure  were  both  standing.  Denise  turned  away  to  draw 
from  her  stays  two  notes  of  five  hundred  francs,  pinned  to  her 
shift.  Then  she  sat  down  and  handed  over  the  bills  to  her 
brother's  counsel.  The  cure  looked  at  the  lawyer  with  a  light 
in  his  eyes,  which  soon  filled  with  tears. 

"Keep  it,"  the  barrister  said  ;  "  keep  the  money  yourself, 
my  poor  girl.  Rich  people  do  not  pay  for  a  lost  cause  in  this 
generous  way. 

"  I  cannot  do  as  you  ask,  sir,  it  is  impossible,"  said  Denise. 

"Then  the  money  does  not  come  from  you?"  the  barrister 
asked  quickly. 

"Pardon  me,"  she  replied,  with  a  questioning  glance  at 
M.  Bonnet — would  God  be  angry  with  her  for  that  lie  ? 

The  cure  kept  his  eyes  lowered. 

"Very  well,"  said  the  barrister,  and,  keeping  one  of  the 
notes  in  his  hand,  he  gave  the  other  to  the  cure,  "  then  I  will 
divide  it  with  the  poor.  And  now,  Denise,  this  is  certainly 
mine  " — he  held  out  the  note  as  he  spoke — "  will  you  give  me 
your  velvet  ribbon  and  gold  cross  in  exchange  for  it  ?  I  will 
hang  the  cross  above  my  chimney-piece  in  memory  of  the 
purest  and  kindest  girl's  heart  which  I  shall  every  meet  with, 
I  doubt  not,  in  my  career." 

"There  is  no  need  to  buy  it,"  cried  Denise,  "I  will  give 
it  you,"  and  she  took  off  her  gilt  cross  and  handed  it  to  the 
lawyer. 

"Very  well,  sir,"  said  the  cur6,  "  I  accept  the  five  hundred 


126  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

francs  to  pay  the  expenses  of  exhuming  and  removing  the 
poor  boy's  body  to  the  churchyard  at  Montegnac.  Doubt- 
less God  has  forgiven  him  ;  Jean  will  rise  again  with  all  my 
flock  at  the  Last  Day,  when  the  righteous  as  well  as  the  penitent 
sinner  will  be  summoned  to  sit  at  the  Father's  right  hand." 

"So  be  it,"  said  the  barrister.  He  took  Denise's  hand  and 
drew  her  towards  him  to  put  a  kiss  on  her  forehead,  a  move- 
ment made  with  another  end  in  view. 

"My  child,"  he  said,  "  nobody  at  Montegnac  has  such  a 
thing  as  a  five-hundred  franc-note  ;  they  are  rather  scarce  in 
Limoges;  people  don't  take  them  here  without  asking  some- 
thing for  changing  them.  So  this  money  has  been  given  to 
you  by  somebody ;  you  are  not  going  to  tell  me  who  it  was, 
and  I  do  not  ask  you,  but  listen  to  this :  if  you  have  anything 
left  to  do  here  which  has  any  reference  to  your  poor  brother, 
mind  how  you  set  about  it.  M.  Bonnet  and  you  and  your 
brother  will  all  three  of  you  be  watched  by  spies.  People 
know  that  your  family  have  gone  away.  If  anybody  recog- 
nizes you  here,  you  will  be  surrounded  before  you  suspect  it." 

"Alas  !  "  she  said,  "  I  have  nothing  left  to  do  here." 

"  She  is  cautious,"  said  the  lawyer  to  himself,  as  he  went 
to  the  door  with  her.  "She  has  been  warned,  so  let  her 
extricate  herself." 

It  was  late  September,  but  the  days  were  as  hot  as  in  the 
summer.  The  bishop  was  giving  a  dinner-party.  The  local 
authorities,  the  public  prosecutor,  and  the  first  avocat  general 
were  among  the  guests.  Discussions  were  started,  which  grew 
lively  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  and  it  was  very  late  before 
they  broke  up.  Whist  and  backgammon,  that  game  beloved 
of  bishops,  were  the  order  of  the  day.  It  happened  that 
about  eleven  o'clock  the  public  prosecutor  stepped  out  upon 
the  upper  terrace,  and  from  the  corner  where  he  stood  saw  a 
light  on  the  island,  which  the  Abbe  Gabriel  and  the  bishop 
had  already  fixed  upon  as  the  central  spot  and  clue  to  the 
inexplicable  tangle  about  Tascheron's  crime — on  Veronique's 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTE GNAC.  127 

Isle  of  France  in  fact.  There  was  no  apparent  reason  why- 
anybody  should  kindle  a  fire  in  the  middle  of  the  Vienne  at 
that  time  of  night — then,  all  at  once,  the  idea  which  had 
struck  the  bishop  and  his  secretary  flashed  upon  the  public 
prosecutor's  brain,  with  a  light  as  sudden  as  that  of  the  fire 
which  shot  up  out  of  the  distant  darkness. 

"  What  a  set  of  great  fools  we  have  all  been  !  "  cried  he, 
"but  we  have  the  accomplices  now." 

He  went  up  to  the  drawing-room  again,  found  out  M.  de 
Granville,  and  said  a  word  or  two  in  his  ear;  then  both  of 
them  vanished.  But  the  Abbe  de  Rastignac,  courteously 
attentive,  watched  them  go  out,  saw  that  they  went  towards 
the  terrace,  and  noticed  too  that  fire  on  the  shore  of  the  island. 

"  It  is  all  over  with  her,"  thought  he. 

The  messengers  of  justice  arrived  on  the  spot — too  late. 
Denise  and  Louis-Marie  (whom  his  brother  Jean  had  taught 
to  dive)  were  there,  it  is  true,  on  the  bank  of  the  Vienne  at  a 
place  pointed  out  by  Jean  ;  but  Louis-Marie  had  already  dived 
four  times,  and  each  time  had  brought  up  with  him  twenty 
thousand  francs  in  gold.  The  first  installment  was  secured  in 
a  bandana  with  the  four  corners  tied  up.  As  soon  as  the 
water  had  been  wrung  from  the  handkerchief,  it  was  thrown 
on  a  great  fire  of  dry  sticks,  kindled  beforehand.  A  shawl 
contained  the  second,  and  the  third  was  secured  in  a  lawn 
handkerchief.  Just  as  Denise  was  about  to  fling  the  fourth 
wrapper  into  the  fire  the  police  came  up,  accompanied  by  a 
commissary,  and  pounced  upon  a  very  important  clue,  as  they 
thought,  which  Denise  suffered  them  to  seize  without  the 
slightest  emotion.  It  was  a  man's  pocket-handkerchief,  which 
still  retained  some  stains  of  blood  in  spite  of  its  long  immer- 
sion. Questioned  forthwith  as  to  her  proceedings,  Denise 
said  that  she  had  brought  the  stolen  money  out  of  the  river,  as 
her  brother  bade  her.  To  the  commissary,  inquiring  why  she 
had  burned  the  wrappings,  she  answered  that  she  was  follow- 
ing out  her  brother's  instructions.     Asked  what  the  wrappings 


128  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

were,  she  replied  boldly  and  with  perfect  truth,  "  A  bandana 
handkerchief,  a  lawn  handkerchief,  and  a  shawl." 

The  handkerchief  which  had  just  been  seized  belonged  to 
her  brother. 

This  fishing  expedition  and  the  circumstances  accompanying 
it  made  plenty  of  talk  in  Limoges.  The  shawl  in  particular 
confirmed  the  belief  that  there  was  a  love  affair  at  the  bottom 
of  Tascheron's  crime. 

"  He  is  dead,  but  he  shields  her  still,"  commented  one  lady, 
when  she  heard  these  final  revelations,  so  cleverly  rendered 
useless. 

"  Perhaps  there  is  some  married  man  in  Limoges  who  will 
find  that  he  is  a  bandana  short,  but  he  will  perforce  hold  his 
tongue,"  said  the  public  prosecutor,  smilingly. 

"Little  mistakes  in  one's  wardrobe  have  come  to  be  so 
compromising,  that  I  shall  set  about  verifying  mine  this  very 
evening,"  said  old  Mine.  Perret,  smiling  too. 

"  Whose  are  the  dainty  little  feet  that  left  the  footmarks, 
so  carefully  erased  ?  "  asked  M.  de  Granville. 

"Pshaw!  perhaps  they  belong  to  some  ugly  woman,"  re- 
turned the  avocat  general. 

"  She  has  paid  dear  for  her  slip,"  remarked  the  Abbe  de 
Grancour. 

"  Do  you  know  what  all  this  business  goes  to  prove?  "  put 
in  the  avocat  general.  "  It  just  shows  how  much  women  have 
lost  through  the  Revolution,  which  obliterated  social  distinc- 
tions. Such  a  passion  is  only  to  be  met  with  nowadays  in  a 
man  who  knows  that  there  is  an  enormous  distance  between 
him  and  the  woman  he  loves." 

"You  credit  love  with  many  vanities,"  returned  the  Abbe 
Dutheil. 

"What  does  Mme.  Graslin  think?  "  asked  the  prefect. 

"  What  would  you  have  her  think  ?  She  was  confined,  as  she 
told  me  she  would  be,  on  the  day  of  the  execution,  and  has  seen 
nobody  since;  she  is  dangerously  ill,"  said  M.  de  Granville. 


THE   CURE   OF  MONTEGNAC.  129 

Meanwhile,  in  another  room  in  Limoges,  an  almost  comic 
scene  was  taking  place.  The  des  Vanneaulx's  friends  were 
congratulating  them  upon  the  restitution  of  their  inheritance. 

"Well,  well,"  said  Mme.  des  Vanneaulx,  "they  ought  to 
have  let  him  off,  poor  man.  It  was  love,  and  not  mercenary 
motives,  that  brought  him  to  it ;  he  was  neither  vicious  nor 
wicked." 

"  He  behaved  like  a  thorough  gentleman,"  said  the  Sieur 
des  Vanneaulx.  "  If  I  knew  where  his  family  was,  I  would  do 
something  for  them  ;  they  are  good  people,  those  Tascherons." 

When  Mme.  Graslin  was  well  enough  to  rise,  towards  the 
end  of  the  year  1829,  after  the  long  illness  which  followed 
her  confinement,  and  obliged  her  to  keep  her  bed  in  absolute 
solitude  and  quiet,  she  heard  her  husband  speak  of  a  rather 
considerable  piece  of  business  which  he  wanted  to  conclude. 
The  Navarreins  family  thought  of  selling  the  forest  of  Mon- 
tegnac  and  the  waste  lands  which  they  owned  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, Graslin  had  not  yet  put  into  execution  a  clause  in  his 
wife's  marriage  settlement,  which  required  that  her  dowry 
should  be  invested  in  land ;  he  had  preferred  to  put  her  money 
out  at  interest  through  the  bank,  and  already  had  doubled 
her  capital.  On  this,  Veronique  seemed  to  recollect  the  name 
of  Montegnac,  and  begged  her  husband  to  carry  out  the  con- 
tract by  purchasing  the  estate  for  her. 

M.  Graslin  wished  very  much  to  see  M.  Bonnet,  to  ask  for 
information  concerning  the  forest  and  lands  which  the  Due  de 
Navarreins  thought  of  selling.  The  Due  de  Navarreins,  be  it 
said,  foresaw  the  hideous  struggle  which  the  Prince  de  Polignac 
had  made  inevitable  between  the  Liberals  and  the  Bourbon 
dynasty;  and  augured  the  worst,  for  which  reasons  he  was 
one  of  the  boldest  opponents  of  the  Coup  d'Etat.  The  Duke 
had  sent  his  man  of  business  to  Limoges  with  instructions  to 
sell,  if  a  bidder  could  be  found  for  so  large  a  sum  of  money, 
for  his  grace  recollected  the  Revolution  of  1789  too  well  not 
9 


130  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

to  profit  by  the  lessons  then  taught  to  the  aristocracy.  It  was 
this  man  of  business  who,  for  more  than  a  month,  had  been 
at  close  quarters  with  Graslin,  the  shrewdest  old  fox  in  Lim- 
ousin, and  the  only  man  whom  common  report  singled  out  as 
being  able  to  pay  down  the  price  of  so  large  an  estate  on  the 
spot. 

At  a  word  sent  by  the  Abbe  Dutheil,  M.  Bonnet  hastened 
to  Limoges  and  the  Hotel  Graslin.  Veronique  would  have 
prayed  the  cure  to  dine  with  her;  but  the  banker  only  allowed 
M.  Bonnet  to  go  up  to  his  wife's  room  after  he  had  kept  him 
a  full  hour  in  his  private  office,  and  obtained  information 
which  satisfied  him  so  well,  that  he  concluded  his  purchase 
out  of  hand,  and  the  forest  and  domain  of  Montegnac  became 
his  (Graslin's)  for  five  hundred  thousand  francs.  He  acqui- 
esced in  his  wife's  wish,  stipulating  that  this  purchase  and  any 
outlay  relating  thereto  should  be  held  to  accomplish  the  clause 
in  her  marriage  contract  as  to  her  fortune.  Graslin  did  this 
the  more  willingly  because  the  piece  of  honesty  now  cost  him 
nothing. 

At  the  time  of  Graslin's  purchase  the  estate  consisted  of  the 
forest  of  Montegnac,  some  thirty  thousand  acres  in  extent, 
but  too  inaccessible  to  bring  in  any  money,  the  ruined  castle, 
the  gardens,  and  some  five  thousand  acres  in  the  uncultivated 
plains  under  Montegnac.  Graslin  made  several  more  pur- 
chases at  once,  so  as  to  have  the  whole  of  the  first  peak  of  the 
Correzien  range  in  his  hands,  for  there  the  vast  forest  of  Mon- 
tegnac came  to  an  end.  Since  the  taxes  had  been  levied  upon 
it,  the  Due  de  Navarreins  had  not  drawn  fifteen  thousand 
francs  a  year  from  the  manor,  formerly  one  of  the  richest  ten- 
ures in  the  kingdom.  The  lands  had  escaped  sale  when  put 
up  under  the  Convention,  partly  because  of  their  barrenness, 
partly  because  it  was  a  recognized  fact  that  nothing  could  be 
made  of  them. 

When  the  cur6  came  face  to  face  with  the  woman  of  whom 
he  had  heard,  a  woman  whose  cleverness  and  piety  were  well 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  131 

known,  he  started  in  spite  of  himself.  At  this  time  Veronique 
had  entered  upon  the  third  period  of  her  life,  a  period  in 
which  she  was  to  grow  greater  by  the  exercise  of  the  loftiest 
virtues,  and  become  a  totally  different  woman.  To  the 
Raphael's  Madonna,  hidden  beneath  the  veil  of  smallpox 
scars,  a  beautiful,  noble,  and  impassioned  woman  had  succeeded, 
a  woman  afterwards  laid  low  by  inward  sorrows,  from  which 
a  saint  emerged.  Her  complexion  had  taken  the  sallow  tint 
seen  in  the  austere  faces  of  abbesses  of  ascetic  life.  A 
yellowish  hue  had  overspread  the  temples,  grown  less  imperious 
now.  The  lips  were  paler,  the  red  of  the  opening  pomegranate 
flower  had  changed  into  the  paler  crimson  of  the  Bengal  rose. 
Between  the  nose  and  the  corners  of  the  eyes  sorrow  had  worn 
two  pearly  channels,  down  which  many  tears  had  coursed  in 
secret ;  much  weeping  had  worn  away  the  traces  of  smallpox. 
It  was  impossible  not  to  fix  your  eyes  on  the  spot  where  a  net- 
work of  tiny  blue  veins  stood  out  swollen  and  distended  with 
the  full  pulses  that  throbbed  there,  as  if  they  fed  the  source 
of  many  tears.  The  faint  brownish  tinge  about  the  eyes  alone 
remained,  but  there  were  dark  circles  under  them  now,  and 
wrinkles  in  the  eyelids  which  told  of  terrible  suffering.  The 
lines  in  the  hollow  cheeks  bore  record  of  solemn  thoughts. 
The  chin,  too,  had  shrunk,  it  had  lost  its  youthful  fulness  of 
outline,  and  this  scarcely  to  the  advantage  of  a  face  which 
wore  an  expression  of  pitiless  austerity,  confined,  however, 
solely  to  Veronique  herself.  At  twenty-nine  years  of  age  her 
hair,  one  of  her  greatest  beauties,  had  faded  and  grown  scanty ; 
she  had  been  obliged  to  pull  out  a  large  quantity  of  white 
hair,  bleached  during  her  confinement.  Her  thinness  was 
shocking  to  see.  In  spite  of  the  doctor's  orders,  she  had  per- 
sisted in  nursing  the  child  herself;  and  the  doctor  was  not 
disposed  to  let  people  forget  this  when  all  his  evil  prognosti- 
cations were  so  thoroughly  fulfilled. 

"  See  what  a  difference  a  single  confinement  has  made  in  a 
woman  !  "  said  he.     "  And  she  worships  that  ehUd  of  hers; 


132  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

but  I  have  always  noticed  that  the  more  a  child  costs  the 
mother,  the  dearer  it  is." 

All  that  remained  of  youth  in  Veronique's  face  lay  in  her 
eyes,  wan  though  they  were.  An  untamed  fire  flashed  from 
the  dark  blue  iris ;  all  the  life  that  had  deserted  the  cold  im- 
passive mask  of  a  face,  expressionless  now  save  for  the  chari- 
table look  which  it  wore  when  her  poorer  neighbors  were 
spoken  of,  seemed  to  have  taken  refuge  there.  So  the  cure's 
first  dismay  and  surprise  abated  somewhat  as  he  went  on  to 
explain  to  her  how  much  good  a  resident  landowner  might  effect 
in  Montegnac,  and  for  a  moment  Veronique's  face  grew  beauti- 
ful, lighted  up  by  this  unexpected  hope  which  began  to  shine 
in  upon  her. 

"  I  will  go  there,"  she  said.  "  It  shall  be  my  property.  I 
will  ask  M.  Graslin  to  put  some  funds  at  my  disposal,  and  I 
will  enter  into  your  charitable  work  with  all  my  might. 
Montegnac  shall  be  cultivated ;  we  will  find  water  somewhere 
to  irrigate  the  waste  land  in  the  plain.  You  are  striking  the 
rock,  like  Moses,  and  tears  will  flow  from  it !  " 

The  cure  of  Montegnac  spoke  of  Mine.  Graslin  as  a  saint 
when  his  friends  in  Limoges  asked  him  about  her. 

The  very  day  after  the  purchase  was  completed,  Graslin 
sent  an  architect  to  Montegnac.  He  was  determined  to  restore 
the  castle,  the  gardens,  terraces,  and  park,  to  reclaim  the 
forest  by  a  plantation,  putting  an  ostentatious  activity  into  all 
that  he  did. 

Two  years  later  a  great  misfortune  befell  Mme.  Graslin. 
Her  husband,  in  spite  of  his  prudence,  was  involved  in  the 
commercial  and  financial  disasters  of  1830.  The  thought  of 
bankruptcy,  or  of  losing  three  millions,  the  gains  of  a  life- 
time of  toil,  were  both  intolerable  to  him.  The  worry  and 
anxiety  aggravated  the  inflammatory  disease,  always  lurking 
in  his  system,  the  result  of  impure  blood.  He  was  compelled 
to  take  to  his  bed.  In  Veronique  a  friendly  feeling  towards 
Graslin  had  developed  during  her  pregnancy,  and  dealt  a  fatal 


THE   CURE   OF  MONTE GNAC.  133 

blow  to  the  hopes  of  her  admirer,  M.  de  Granville.  By  care- 
ful nursing  she  tried  to  save  her  husband's  life,  but  only  suc- 
ceeded in  prolonging  a  suffering  existence  for  a  few  months. 
This  respite,  however,  was  very  useful  to  Grossetete,  who, 
foreseeing  the  end,  consulted  with  his  old  comrade,  and  made 
all  the  necessary  arrangements  for  a  prompt  realization. 

In  April,  1831,  Monsieur  Graslin  died,  and  his  widow's  de- 
spairing grief  only  sobered  down  into  Christian  resignation. 
From  the  first  Veronique  had  wished  to  give  up  her  whole 
fortune  to  her  husband's  creditors ;  but  M.  Graslin's  estate 
proved  to  be  more  than  sufficient.  It  was  Grossetete  who 
wound  up  his  affairs,  and  two  months  after  the  settlement 
Mme.  Graslin  found  herself  the  mistress  of  the  domains  of 
Montegnac  and  of  six  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  francs,  all 
her  own ;  and  no  blot  rested  on  her  son's  name.  No  one 
had  lost  anything  through  Graslin — not  even  his  wife;  and 
Francis  Graslin  had  about  a  hundred  thousand  francs. 

Then  M.  de  Granville,  who  had  reason  to  know  Veronique's 
nature  and  loftiness  of  soul,  came  forward  as  a  suitor;  but,  to 
the  amazement  of  all  Limoges,  Mme.  Graslin  refused  the 
newly-appointed  public  prosecutor,  on  the  ground  that  second 
marriages  were  discountenanced  by  the  Church.  Grossetete, 
a  man  of  unerring  forecast  and  sound  sense,  advised  Vero- 
nique to  invest  the  rest  of  M.  Graslin's  fortune  and  her  own 
in  the  Funds,  and  effected  this  himself  for  her  at  once,  in  the 
month  of  July,  when  the  three  per  cents,  stood  at  fifty.  So 
Francis  had  an  income  of  six  thousand  livres,  and  his  mother 
about  forty  thousand.  Veronique's  was  still  the  greatest  for- 
tune in  the  department. 

All  was  settled  at  last,  and  Mme.  Graslin  gave  out  that  she 
meant  to  leave  Limoges  to  live  nearer  to  M.  Bonnet.  Again 
she  sent  for  the  cure,  to  consult  him  about  his  work  at  Mon- 
tegnac, in  which  she  was  determined  to  share ;  but  he  gener- 
ously tried  to  dissuade  her,  and  to  make  it  clear  to  her  that 
her  place  was  in  society. 


134  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"  I  have  sprung  from  the  people,  and  I  mean  to  return  to 
them,"  said  she. 

The  cure's  great  love  for  his  own  village  resisted  the  more 
feebly  when  he  learned  that  Mme.  Graslin  had  arranged  to 
make  over  her  house  in  Limoges  to  M.  Grossetgte.  Certain 
sums  were  due  to  the  banker,  and  he  took  the  house  at  its  full 
value  in  settlement. 

Mme.  Graslin  finally  left  Limoges  towards  the  end  of  Au- 
gust, 1 83 1.  A  troop  of  friends  gathered  about  her,  and  went 
with  her  as  far  as  the  outskirts  of  the  town  ;  some  of  them 
went  the  whole  first  stage  of  the  journey.  Veronique  traveled 
in  a  caleche  with  her  mother;  the  Abbe  Dutheil,  recently 
appointed  to  a  bishopric,  sat  opposite  them  with  old  M.  Gros- 
setete.  As  they  went  through  the  Place  d'Aine,  Veronique's 
emotion  was  almost  uncontrollable  ;  her  face  contracted  ;  every 
muscle  quivered  with  the  pain ;  she  snatched  up  her  child, 
and  held  him  tightly  to  her  in  a  convulsive  grasp,  while  La 
Sauviat  tried  to  cover  her  emotion  by  following  her  example — 
it  seemed  that  La  Sauviat  was  not  unprepared  for  something 
of  this  kind. 

Chance  so  ordered  it  that  Mme.  Graslin  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  house  where  her  father  had  lived ;  she  clutched  Mme. 
Sauviat's  hand,  great  tears  filled  her  eyes  and  rolled  down  her 
cheeks.  When  Limoges  was  fairly  left  behind,  she  turned 
and  took  a  last  farewell  glance ;  and  all  her  friends  noticed  a 
certain  look  of  happiness  in  her  face.  When  the  public 
prosecutor,  the  young  man  of  five-and-twenty  whom  she  had 
declined  to  marry,  came  up  and  kissed  her  hand  with  lively 
expressions  of  regret,  the  newly-made  bishop  noticed  some- 
thing strange  in  Veronique's  eyes :  the  dark  pupils  dilated 
till  the  blue  became  a  thin  ring  about  them.  It  was 
unmistakable  that  some  violent  revulsion  took  place  within 
her. 

"Now  I  shall  never  see  him  again,"  she  said  in  her 
pother's  ear,  but  jthere  was  not  the  slightest  trace  of  feeling 


THE   CURE    OF  MONTEGNAC.  135 

in  the  impassive  old  face  as  Mme.  Sauviat  received  that 
confidence. 

Grossetete,  the  shrewd  old  banker,  sitting  opposite,  watch- 
ing the  women  with  keen  eyes,  had  not  discovered  that  Veron- 
ique  hated  this  man,  whom  for  that  matter  she  received  as  a 
visitor.  In  things  of  this  kind  a  churchman  is  far  clearer- 
sighted  than  other  men,  and  the  bishop  surprised  Veronique 
by  a  glance  that  revealed  an  ecclesiastic's  perspicacity. 

"You  have  no  regret  in  leaving  Limoges?"  the  bishop 
said  to  Mme.  Graslin. 

"You  are  leaving  the  town,"  she  replied.  "And  M. 
Grossetete  scarcely  ever  comes  among  us  now,"  she  added, 
with  a  smile  for  her  old  friend  as  he  said  good-bye. 

The  bishop  went  the  whole  of  the  way  to  Montegnac  with 
Veronique. 

"I  ought  to  have  made  this  journey  in  mourning,"  she 
said  in  her  mother's  ear  as  they  walked  up  the  hill  near  Saint- 
Leonard. 

The  old  woman  turned  her  crabbed,  wrinkled  face,  and 
laid  her  finger  on  her  lips ;  then  she  pointed  to  the  bishop, 
who  was  giving  the  child  a  terrible  scrutiny.  Her  mother's 
gesture  first,  and  yet  more  the  significant  expression  in  the 
bishop's  eyes,  made  Mme.  Graslin  shudder.  The  light  died 
out  of  her  face  as  she  looked  out  across  the  wide  gray  stretch 
of  plain  before  Montegnac,  and  melancholy  overcame  her. 
All  at  once  she  saw  the  cure  coming  to  meet  her,  and  made 
him  take  a  seat  in  the  carriage. 

"This  is  your  domain,"  said  M.  Bonnet,  indicating  the 
level  waste. 


IV 

MADAME  GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC. 

In  a  few  moments  the  township  of  Montegnac  came  in 
sight ;  the  hillside  and  the  conspicuous  new  buildings  upon  it 
shone  golden  in  the  light  of  the  sunset ;  it  was  a  lovely  land- 
scape like  an  oasis  in  the  desert,  with  a  picturesque  charm  of 
its  own,  due  to  the  contrast  with  its  setting.  Mme.  Graslin's 
eyes  began  to  fill  with  tears.  The  cure  pointed  out  a  broad 
white  track  like  a  scar  on  the  hillside. 

"That  is  what  my  parishioners  have  done  to  show  their 
gratitude  to  their  lady  of  the  manor,"  he  said.  "We  can 
drive  the  whole  way  to  the  chateau.  The  road  is  finished 
now,  and  has  not  cost  you  a  sou ;  we  shall  put  in  a  row  of 
trees  beside  it  in  two  months'  time.  My  lord  bishop  can 
imagine  how  much  toil,  thought,  and  devotion  went  to  the 
making  of  such  a  change." 

"And  they  have  done  this  themselves  !  "  said  the  bishop. 

"They  would  take  nothing  in  return,  my  lord.  The 
poorest  lent  a  hand,  for  they  all  knew  that  one  who  would  be 
like  a  mother  to  them  was  coming  to  live  among  us." 

There  was  a  crowd  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  all  the  village  was 
there.  Guns  were  fired  off,  and  mortars  exploded,  and  then 
the  two  prettiest  girls  of  Montegnac,  in  white  dresses,  came  to 
offer  flowers  and  fruit  to  Mme.  Graslin. 

"  That  I  should  be  welcomed  here  like  this  !  "  she  cried, 
clutching  M.  Bonnet's  hand  as  if  she  felt  that  she  was  falling 
over  a  precipice. 

The   crowd  went   up   as   far   as   the   great   iron    gateway, 

whence  Mme.   Graslin  could  see  her  chateau.     At  first  sight 

the  splendor  of  her  dwelling  was  a  shock  to  her.     Stone  for 

building   is   scarce   in  this  district,  for  the  native  granite  is 

(136) 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  137 

hard  and  exceedingly  difficult  to  work;  so  Graslin's  architect 
had  used  brick  for  the  main  body  of  the  great  building,  there 
being  plenty  of  brick  earth  in  the  forest  of  Montegnac,  and 
wood  for  the  felling.  All  the  woodwork  and  stone,  in  fact, 
came  also  from  the  forest  and  the  quarries  in  it.  But  for 
these  economies,  Graslin  must  have  been  put  to  a  ruinous 
expense  ;  but  as  it  was,  the  principal  outlay  was  for  wages, 
carriage,  and  salaries,  and  the  money  circulating  in  the 
township  had  put  new  life  into  it. 

At  a  first  glance  the  chateau  stood  up  a  huge  red  mass, 
scored  with  dark  lines  of  mortar,  and  outlined  with  gray,  for 
the  facings  and  quoins  and  the  string  courses  along  each  story 
were  of  granite,  each  block  being  cut  in  facets  diamond 
fashion.  The  surface  of  the  brick  walls  round  the  courtyard 
(a  sloping  oval  like  the  courtyard  of  Versailles)  was  broken 
by  slabs  of  granite  surrounded  by  bosses,  and  set  at  equal  dis- 
tances. Shrubs  had  been  planted  under  the  walls,  with  a  view 
to  obtaining  the  contrasts  of  their  various  foliage.  Two  hand- 
some iron  gateways  gave  access  on  the  one  hand  to  the  terrace 
which  overlooked  Montegnac,  and  on  the  other  to  a  farm  and 
outbuildings.  The  great  gateway  at  the  summit  of  the  new 
road,  which  had  just  been  finished,  had  a  neat  lodge  on 
either  side,  built  in  the  style  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  facade  of  the  chateau  fronted  the  courtyard  and  faced 
the  west.  It  consisted  of  three  towers,  the  central  tower 
being  connected  with  the  one  on  either  side  of  it  by  two 
wings.  The  back  of  the  house  was  precisely  similar,  and 
looked  over  the  gardens  towards  the  east.  There  was  but  one 
window  in  each  tower  on  the  side  of  the  courtyard  and  gar- 
dens, each  wing  having  three.  The  centre  tower  was  built 
something  after  the  fashion  of  a  campanile,  the  corner-stones 
were  vermiculated,  and  here  some  delicate  sculptured  work 
had  been  sparingly  introduced.  Art  is  timid  in  the  provinces  ; 
and  though  in  1829  some  progress  had  been  made  in  architec- 
tural ornament  (thanks  to  certain  writers),  the  owners   of 


138  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

houses  shrank  at  that  time  from  an  expense  which  lack  of 
competition  and  scarcity  of  craftsmen  rendered  somewhat 
formidable. 

The  tower  at  either  end  (three  windows  in  depth)  was 
crowned  by  a  high-pitched  roof,  with  a  granite  balustrade  by 
way  of  decoration  ;  each  angle  of  the  pyramid  was  sharply 
cut  by  an  elegant  balcony  lined  with  lead,  and  surrounded  by 
cast-iron  railings,  and  an  elegantly  sculptured  window  occupy- 
ing each  side  of  the  roof.  All  the  door  and  window  cornices 
on  each  story  were  likewise  ornamented  with  carved  work 
copied  from  Genoese  palace  fronts.  The  three  side  windows 
of  the  southern  tower  looked  out  over  Montegnac,  the 
northern  gave  a  view  of  the  forest. 

From  the  eastern  windows  you  could  see  beyond  the  gar- 
dens that  part  of  Montegnac  where  the  Tascherons  had  lived, 
and  far  down  below  in  the  valley  the  road  which  led  to  the 
chief  town  in  the  arrondissement.  From  the  west  front, 
which  faced  towards  the  courtyard,  you  saw  the  wide  map  of 
the  plain  stretching  away  on  the  Montegnac  side  to  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Correze,  and  elsewhere  to  the  circle  of  the 
horizon,  where  it  blended  with  the  sky. 

The  wings  were  low,  the  single  story  being  built  in  the 
mansard  roof,  in  the  old  French  style,  but  the  towers  at 
either  end  rose  a  story  higher.  The  central  tower  was  crowned 
by  a  sort  of  flattened  dome  like  the  clock  towers  of  the  Tuil- 
eries  or  the  Louvre  ;  the  single  room  in  the  turret  was  a  sort 
of  belvedere,  and  fitted  with  a  turret-clock.  Ridge  tiles  had 
been  used  for  economy's  sake ;  the  massive  balks  of  timber 
from  the  forest  readily  carried  the  enormous  weight  of  the 
roof. 

Gras4in's  "  folly,"  as  he  called  the  chateau,  had  brought 
five  hundred  thousand  francs  into  the  commune.  He  had 
planned  the  road  before  he  died,  and  the  commune  out  of 
gratitude  had  finished  it.  Montegnac  had,  moreover,  grown 
considerably.     Behind  the  stables  and  outbuildings,  on  the 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTE  GNAC.  139 

north  side  of  the  hill  where  it  slopes  gradually  down  into  the 
plain,  Graslin  had  begun  to  build  the  steadings  of  a  farm  on 
a  large  scale,  which  showed  that  he  had  meant  to  turn  the 
waste  land  in  the  plain  to  account.  The  plantations  con- 
sidered indispensable  by  M.  Bonnet  were  still  proceeding 
under  the  direction  of  a  head  gardener  with  six  men,  who 
were  lodged  in  the  outbuildings. 

The  whole  ground  floor  of  the  chateau,  taken  up  by  sitting. 
rooms,  had  been  splendidly  furnished,  but  the  second  story 
was  rather  bare,  M.  Graslin' s  death  having  suspended  the  up- 
holsterer's operations. 

"  Ah  !  my  lord,"  said  Mme.  Graslin,  turning  to  the  bishop, 
after  they  had  been  through  the  chateau,  "  I  had  thought  to 
live  here  in  a  thatched  cottage.  Poor  M.  Graslin  committed 
many  follies- " 

"  And  you "  the  bishop  added,  after  a  pause,  and  Mme. 

Graslin's  light  shudder  did  not  escape  him — " you  are  about 
to  do  charitable  deeds,  are  you  not  ?  " 

She  went  to  her  mother,  who  held  little  Francis  by  the 
hand,  laid  her  hand  on  the  old  woman's  arm,  and  went  with 
the  two  as  far  as  the  long  terrace  which  rose  above  the  church 
and  the  parsonage  ;  all  the  houses  in  the  village,  rising  step- 
wise up  the  hillside,  could  be  seen  at  once.  The  cure  took 
possession  of  M.  Dutheil,  and  began  to  point  out  the  various 
features  of  the  landscape  ;  but  the  eyes  of  both  ecclesiastics 
soon  turned  to  the  terrace,  where  Veronique  and  her  mother 
stood  motionless  as  statues ;  the  older  woman  took  out  a  hand- 
kerchief and  wiped  her  eyes,  her  daughter  leaned  upon  the 
balustrade,  and  seemed  to  be  pointing  out  the  church  below. 

"What  is  the  matter,  madame  ?  "  the  Cure  Bonnet  asked, 
turning  to  La  Sauviat. 

"Nothing,"  answered  Mme.  Graslin,  coming  towards  the 
two  priests  and  facing  them.  "  I  did  not  know  that  the 
churchyard  would  be  right  under  my  eyes " 

"  You  can  have  it  removed  ;  the  law  is  on  your  side." 


140  THE    COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"  The  law  !  V  the  words  broke  from  her  like  a  cry  of  pain. 

Again  the  bishop  looked  at  Veronique.  But  she — tired  of 
meeting  that  sombre  glance,  which  seemed  to  lay  bare  the 
soul  and  discover  her  secret  in  its  depths,  a  secret  buried  in  a 
grave  in  that  churchyard — cried  out — 

"  Very  well,  then— yes  /  " 

The  bishop  laid  his  hand  over  his  eyes,  so  overwhelmed  by 
this,  that  for  some  moments  he  stood  lost  in  thought. 

"Hold  her  up,"  cried  the  old  mother;  "she  is  turning 
pale." 

"  The  air  here  is  so  keen,  I  have  taken  a  chill,"  murmured 
Mme.  Graslin,  and  she  sank  fainting  as  the  two  ecclesiastics 
caught  her  in  their  arms.  They  carried  her  into  the  house, 
and  when  she  came  to  herself  again  she  saw  the  bishop  and 
the  cure  kneeling  in  prayer  for  her. 

"  May  the  angel  which  has  visited  you  ever  stay  beside 
you  !  "  the  bishop  said,  as  he  gave  her  his  blessing.  "Adieu, 
my  daughter." 

Mme.  Graslin  burst  into  tears  at  the  words. 

"  Is  she  really  saved  ?  "  cried  the  old  mother. 

"In  this  world  and  in  the  next,"  the  bishop  turned  to  an- 
swer, as  he  left  the  room. 

Mme.  Graslin  had  been  carried  by  her  mother's  orders  to  a 
room  on  the  first  floor  of  the  southern  tower ;  the  windows 
looked  out  upon  the  churchyard  and  the  south  side  of  Mon- 
tegnac.  Here  she  chose  to  remain,  and  installed  herself  there 
as  best  she  could  with  her  maid  Aline,  and  little  Francis. 
Mme.  Sauviat's  room  naturally  was  near  her  daughter's. 

It  was  some  days  before  Mme.  Graslin  recovered  from  the 
cruel  agitation  which  prostrated  her  on  the  day  of  her  arrival, 
and,  moreover,  her  mother  insisted  that  she  must  stay  in  bed  in 
the  morning.  In  the  evening,  however,  Veronique  came  to  sit 
on  a  bench  on  the  terrace,  and  looked  down  on  the  church 
and  parsonage  and  into  the  churchyard.  In  spite  of  mute 
opposition  on  Mme.  Sauviat's  part,  Veronique  contracted  a 


MADAM&  GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  141 

habit  of  always  sitting  in  the  same  place  and  giving  way  to 
melancholy  broodings;  it  was  almost  a  mania. 

"  Madame  is  dying/'  Aline  said  to  the  old  mother. 

At  last  the  two  women  spoke  to  the  cure;  and  he,  good 
man,  who  had  shrunk  from  intruding  himself  upon  Mme. 
Graslin,  came  assiduously  to  see  her  when  he  learned  that 
she  was  suffering  from  some  malady  of  the  soul,  carefully 
timing  his  visits  so  that  he  always  found  Veronique  and  the 
child,  both  in  mourning,  out  on  the  terrace.  The  country 
was  already  beginning  to  look  dreary  and  sombre  in  the  early 
days  of  October. 

When  Veronique  first  came  to  the  chateau,  M.  Bonnet  had 
seen  at  once  that  she  was  suffering  from  some  hidden  wound, 
but  he  thought  it  better  to  wait  until  his  future  penitent  should 
give  him  her  confidence.  One  evening,  however,  he  saw  an 
expression  in  Mme.  Graslin's  eyes  that  warned  him  to  hesitate 
no  longer — the  dull  apathy  of  a  mind  brooding  over  the 
thought  of  death.  He  set  himself  to  check  the  progress  of 
this  cruel  disease  of  the  mind. 

At  first  there  was  a  sort  of  struggle  between  them,  a  fence 
of  empty  words,  each  of  them  striving  to  disguise  their 
thoughts.  The  evening  was  chilly,  but  for  all  that  Veronique 
sat  out  on  the  granite  bench  with  little  Francis  on  her  knee. 
She  could  not  see  the  churchyard,  for  Mme.  Sauviat,  leaning 
against  the  parapet,  deliberately  shut  it  out  from  sight.  Aline 
stood  waiting  to  take  the  child  indoors.  It  was  the  seventh 
time  that  the  cure  had  found  Veronique  there  on  the  terrace. 
He  spoke — 

"  I  used  to  think  that  you  were  merely  sad,  madame,  but," 
and  he  lowered  his  voice  and  spoke  in  her  ear,  "this  is  de- 
spair. Despair,  Madame  Graslin,  is  neither  Christian  nor 
is  it  Catholic." 

"Oh  !  "  she  exclaimed,  with  an  intent  glance  at  the  sky, 
and  a  bitter  smile  stole  over  her  lips,  "  what  would  the  church 
leave  to  a  damned  soul,  if  not  despair?  " 


142  THE  COUNTR  Y  PARSON. 

Her  words  revealed  to  the  cure  how  far  this  soul  had  been 
laid  waste. 

"  Ah  !  you  are  making  for  yourself  a  hell  out  of  this  hill- 
side, when  it  should  rather  be  a  calvary  whence  your  soul 
might  lift  itself  up  towards  heaven." 

"  I  am  too  humble  now,"  she  said,  "  to  put  myself  on  such 
a  pedestal,"  and  her  tone  was  a  revelation  of  the  depth  of  her 
self-scorn. 

Then  a  sudden  light  flashed  across  the  cure — one  of  the 
inspirations  which  come  so  often  and  so  naturally  to  noble 
and  pure  souls  who  live  with  God.  He  took  up  the  child  and 
kissed  him  on  the  forehead.  "  Poor  little  one  !  "  he  said,  in 
a  fatherly  voice,  and  gave  the  child  to  the  nurse,  who  took 
him  away.  Mme.  Sauviat  looked  at  her  daughter,  and  saw 
how  powerfully  those  words  had  wrought  on  her,  for  Veron- 
ique's  eyes,  long  dry,  were  wet  with  tears.  Then  she  too 
went,  with  a  sign  to  the  priest. 

"Will  you  take  a  walk  on  the  terrace?"  suggested  M. 
Bonnet  when  they  were  alone.  "You  are  in  my  charge;  I 
am  accountable  to  God  for  your  sick  soul,"  and  they  went 
towards  the  end  of  the  terrace  above  "  Tascherons'." 

"Leave  me  to  recover  from  my  prostration,"  she  said. 

"Your  prostration  is  the  result  of  pernicious  broodings." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  with  the  naivete  of  pain,  too  sorely 
troubled  to  fence  any  longer. 

"  I  see,"  he  answered  ;  "  you  have  sunk  into  the  depths  of 
indifference.  If  physical  pain  passes  a  certain  point  it  extin- 
guishes modesty,  and  so  it  is  with  mental  anguish,  it  reaches  a 
degree  when  the  soul  grows  faint  within  us  ;  I  know." 

Veronique  was  not  prepared  for  this  subtle  observation  and 
tender  pity  in  M.  Bonnet ;  but  as  has  been  seen  already,  the 
quick  sympathies  of  a  heart  unjaded  by  emotion  of  its  own 
had  taught  him  to  detect  and  feel  the  pain  of  others  among 
his  flock  with  the  maternal  instinct  of  a  woman.  This  apos- 
tolic tenderness,  this  mens  rfivinior,  raises  the  priest  above  his 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  143 

fellow-men  and  makes  of  him  a  being  divine.  Mme.  Graslin 
had  not  as  yet  looked  deep  enough  into  the  curd's  nature  to 
discover  the  beauty  hidden  away  in  that  soul,  the  source  of 
its  grace  and  freshness  and  its  inner  life. 

"Ah!    monsieur "she    began,    and    a   glance   and   a 

gesture,  such  a  gesture  and  glance  as  the  dying  give,  put  her 
secret  into  his  keeping. 

"  I  understand  !  "  he  answered.  "  But  what  then  ?  What 
is  to  be  done?  " 

Silently  they  went  along  the  terrace  towards  the  plain.  To 
the  bearer  of  good-tidings,  the  son  of  Christ,  the  solemn 
moment  seemed  propitious. 

"  Suppose  that  you  stood  now  before  the  Throne  of  God," 
he  said,  and  his  voice  grew  low  and  mysterious,  "what  would 
you  say  to  Him?  " 

Mme.  Graslin  stopped  short  as  if  thunderstruck;  a  light 
shudder  ran  through  her. 

"I  should  say  to  Him  as  Christ  said,  'My  Father,  Thou 
hast  forsaken  me  !  '  "  she  answered  simply.  The  tones  of  her 
voice  brought  tears  to  the  cure's  eyes. 

"  Oh  Magdalen,  those  are  the  very  words  I  was  waiting  to 
hear  !  "  he  exclaimed,  unable  to  refuse  his  admiration.  "  You 
see,  you  appeal  to  God's  justice!  Listen,  madame,  religion 
is  the  rule  of  God  before  the  time.  The  church  reserves  the 
right  of  judgment  in  all  that  concerns  the  soul.  Man's  justice 
is  but  the  faint  image  of  God's  justice,  a  pale  shadow  of  the 
eternal  adapted  to  the  temporal  needs  of  society." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  You  are  not  judge  in  your  own  cause,  you  are  amenable  to 
God ;  you  have  no  right  to  condemn  nor  to  pardon  yourself. 
God  is  the  great  reviser  of  judgments,  my  daughter." 

"Ah!"  she  cried. 

"  He  sees  to  the  origin  of  all  things,  while  we  only  see  the 
things  themselves." 

Again  Veronique  stopped.     These  ideas  were  new  to  her. 


H4  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"To  a  soul  as  lofty  as  yours,"  he  went  on  courageously, 
"I  do  not  speak  as  to  my  poor  parishioners;  I  owe  it  to  you 
to  use  a  different  language.  You  who  have  so  cultivated  your 
mind  can  rise  to  the  knowledge  of  the  spirit  of  the  Catholic 
religion,  which  words  and  symbols  must  express  and  make 
visible  to  the  eyes  of  babes  and  the  poor.  Follow  what  I 
am  about  to  say  carefully,  for  it  refers  to  you ;  and  if  the 
point  of  view  which  I  take  for  the  moment  seems  wide,  it  is 
none  the  less  your  own  case  which  I  am  considering,  and  now 
about  to  make  clear  to  your  understanding. 

"  Justice,  devised  for  the  protection  of  society,  is  based  upon 
a  theory  of  the  equality  of  individuals.  Society,  which  is 
nothing  but  an  aggregation  of  facts,  is  based  on  inequality. 
So  there  is  a  fundamental  discrepancy  between  justice  and 
fact.  Should  the  law  exercise  a  restraining  or  encouraging 
influence  on  the  progress  of  society  ?  In  other  words,  should 
the  law  oppose  itself  to  the  internal  tendency  of  society,  so 
as  to  maintain  things  as  they  are;  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
should  the  law  be  more  flexible,  adapt  itself,  and  keep  pace 
with  the  tendency  so  as  to  guide  it  ?  No  maker  of  laws  since 
men  began  to  live  together  has  taken  it  upon  himself  to  decide 
that  problem.  All  legislators  have  been  content  to  analyze 
facts,  to  indicate  those  which  seemed  to  them  to  be  blame- 
worthy or  criminal,  and  to  prescribe  punishments  or  rewards. 
Such  is  law  as  man  has  made  it.  It  is  powerless  to  prevent 
evil-doing ;  powerless  no  less  to  prevent  offenders  who  have 
been  punished  from  offending  again. 

"  Philanthropy  is  a  sublime  error.  Philanthropy  vainly 
applies  severe  discipline  to  the  body,  while  it  cannot  find  the 
balm  which  heals  the  soul.  Philanthropy  conceives  projects, 
sets  forth  theories,  and  leaves  mankind  to  carry  them  out  by 
means  of  silence,  work,  and  discipline — dumb  methods,  with 
no  virtue  in  them.  Religion  knows  nought  of  these  imperfec- 
tions ;  for  her,  life  extends  beyond  this  world  ;  for  religion,  we 
are  all  of  us  fallen  creatures  in  a  state  of  degradation,  and  it 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  145 

is  this  very  view  of  mankind  which  opens  out  to  us  an 
inexhaustible  treasure  of  indulgence.  All  of  us  are  on  the 
way  to  our  complete  regeneration,  some  of  us  are  farther 
advanced,  and  some  less,  but  none  of  us  are  infallible;  the 
church  is  prepared  for  sins,  aye,  and  even  for  crimes.  In 
a  criminal,  society  sees  an  individual  to  be  cut  off  from  its 
midst,  but  the  church  sees  in  him  a  soul  to  be  saved.     And 

more,  far  more  !- Inspired  by  God,  whose  dealings  with 

man  she  watches  and  ponders,  the  church  admits  our  inequal- 
ity as  human  beings,  and  takes  the  disproportionate  burden 
into  account,  and  we  who  are  so  unequal  in  heart,  in  body  or 
mind,  in  courage  or  aptitude,  are  made  equal  by  repentance. 
In  this,  madame,  equality  is  no  empty  word ;  we  can  be,  and 
are,  all  equal  through  our  sentiments. 

"  One  idea  runs  through  all  religions,  from  the  uncouth 
fetichism  of  the  savage  to  the  graceful  imaginings  of  the 
Greek  and  the  profound  and  ingenious  doctrines  of  India 
and  Egypt,  an  idea  that  finds  expression  in  all  cults  joyous 
or  gloomy,  a  conviction  of  man's  fall  and  of  his  sin,  whence, 
everywhere,  the  idea  of  sacrifice  and  redemption. 

"The  death  of  the  Redeemer,  who  died  for  the  whole 
human  race,  is  for  us  a  symbol ;  this,  too,  we  must  do  for  our- 
selves ;  we  must  redeem  our  errors  ! — redeem  our  sins  ! — re- 
deem our  crimes  !  There  is  no  sin  beyond  redemption — all 
Catholicism  lies  in  that.  It  is  the  wherefore  of  the  holy 
sacraments  which  assist  in  the  work  of  grace  and  sustain  the 
repentant  sinner.  And  though  one  should  weep,  madame, 
and  sigh  like  the  Magdalen  in  the  desert,  this  is  but  the  begin- 
ning— an  action  is  the  end.  The  monasteries  wept,  but  acted 
too;  they  prayed,  but  they  civilized ;  they  were  the  active 
practical  spreaders  of  our  divine  religion.  They  built,  and 
planted,  and  tilled  Europe ;  they  rescued  the  treasures  of 
learning  for  us ;  to  them  we  owe  the  preservation  of  our  juris- 
prudence, our  traditions  of  statecraft  and  art.  The  sites  of 
those  centres  of  light  will  be  for  ever  remembered  in  Europe 
10 


146  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

with  gratitude.  Most  modern  towns  sprang  up  about  a  mon- 
astery. 

"If  you  believe  that  God  is  to  judge  you,  the  church, 
using  my  voice,  tells  you  that  there  is  no  sin  beyond  redemp- 
tion through  the  good  works  of  repentance.  The  evil  we 
have  wrought  is  weighed  against  the  good  that  we  have  done 
by  the  great  hands  of  God.  Be  yourself  a  monastery  here  ; 
it  is  within  your  power  to  work  miracles  once  more.  For  you, 
work  must  be  prayer.  Your  work  should  be  to  diffuse  happi- 
ness among  those  above  whom  you  have  been  set  by  your 
fortune  and  your  intellect,  and  in  all  ways,  even  by  your 
natural  position,  for  the  height  of  your  chateau  above  the 
village  is  a  visible  expression  of  your  social  position." 

They  were  turning  towards  the  plains  as  he  spoke,  so  that 
the  cure  could  point  out  the  village  on  the  lower  slopes  of 
the  hill  and  the  chateau  towering  above  it.  It  was  half-past 
four  in  the  afternoon.  A  shaft  of  yellow  sunlight  fell  across 
the  terrace  and  the  gardens ;  it  lighted  up  the  chateau  and 
brought  out  the  pattern  of  the  gleaming  gilt  scroll-work  on 
the  corner  balconies  high  up  on  the  towers;  it  lit  the  plain 
which  stretched  into  the  distance  divided  by  the  road,  a  sober 
gray  ribbon  with  no  embroidery  of  trees  as  yet  to  outline  a 
waving  green  border  on  either  side.  Veronique  and  M.  Bon- 
net passed  the  end  of  the  chateau  and  came  into  the  court- 
yard, beyond  which  the  stables  and  barn  buildings  lay  in 
sight,  and  farther  yet,  the  forest  of  Montegnac  ;  the  sunlight 
slid  across  the  landscape  like  a  lingering  caress.  Even  when 
the  last  glow  of  the  sunset  had  faded  except  from  the  highest 
hills,  it  was  still  light  enough  in  the  plain  below  to  see  all  the 
chance  effects  of  color  in  the  splendid  tapestry  of  an  autumn 
forest  spread  between  Montegnac  and  the  first  peak  of  the 
chain  of  the  Correze.  The  oak  trees  stood  out  like  masses 
of  Florentine  bronze  among  the  verdigris  greens  of  the  walnuts 
and  chestnuts ;  the  leaves  of  a  few  trees,  the  first  to  change, 
shone  like  gold  among  the  others;  and  all  these  different 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  147 

shades  of  color  were  emphasized  by  the  gray  patches  of  bare 
earth.  The  trunks  of  leafless  trees  looked  like  pale  columns; 
and  every  tint,  red,  tawny,  and  gray,  picturesquely  blended  in 
the  pale  October  sunshine,  made  a  harmony  of  color  with  the 
fertile  lowland,  where  the  vast  fallows  were  green  as  stagnant 
water.  Not  a  tree  stirred,  not  a  bird — death  in  the  plain, 
silence  in  the  forest ;  a  thought  in  the  priest's  mind,  as  yet 
unuttered,  was  to  be  the  sole  comment  on  that  dumb  beauty. 
A  streak  of  smoke  rose  here  and  there  from  the  thatched  roofs 
of  the  village.  The  chateau  seemed  sombre  as  its  mistress' 
mood,  for  there  is  a  mysterious  law  of  uniformity,  in  virtue 
of  which  the  house  takes  its  character  from  the  dominant 
nature  within  it,  a  subtle  presence  which  hovers  throughout. 
The  sense  of  the  cure's  words  had  reached  Mme.  Graslin's 
brain ;  they  had  gone  to  her  heart  with  all  the  force  of  con- 
viction ;  the  angelic  resonance  of  his  voice  had  stirred  her 
tenderness ;  she  stopped  suddenly  short.  The  cure  stretched 
his  arm  out  towards  the  forest ;  Veronique  looked  at  him. 

"Do  you  not  see  a  dim  resemblance  between  this  and  the 
life  of  humanity  ?  His  own  fate  for  each  of  us  !  And  what 
unequal  lots  there  are  among  that  mass  of  trees.  Those  on 
the  highest  ground  have  poorer  soil  and  less  water;  they  are 
the  first  to  die " 

"  And  some  are  cut  down  in  the  grace  of  their  youth  by  some 
woman  gathering  wood  !  "  she  said  bitterly. 

11  Do  not  give  way  to  those  feelings  again,"  he  answered 
firmly,  but  with  indulgence  in  his  manner.  "  The  forest  has 
not  been  cut  down,  and  that  has  been  its  ruin.  Do  you  see 
something  yonder  there  among  the  dense  forest  ?  " 

Veronique  could  scarcely  distinguish  between  the  usual  and 
unusual  in  a  forest,  but  she  obediently  looked  in  the  required 
direction,  and  then  timidly  at  the  cure. 

"  Do  you  not  observe,"  he  said,  seeing  in  that  glance  that 
Veronique  did  not  understand,  "  that  there  are  strips  where 
ail  the  trees  of  every  kind  are  still  green  ?  '* 


148  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"  Oh,  so  there  are  !  "  she  cried.     "  How  is  it  ?  " 

"  In  those  strips  of  green  lies  a  fortune  for  Montegnac  and 
for  you — a  vast  fortune,  as  I  pointed  out  to  M.  Graslin. 
You  can  see  three  furrows;  those  are  three  valleys,  the 
streams  there  are  lost  in  the  torrent-bed  of  the  Gabou.  The 
Gabou  is  the  boundary  line  between  us  and  the  next  commune. 
All  through  September  and  October  it  is  dry,  but  when 
November  comes  it  will  be  full.  All  that  water  runs  to  waste  ; 
but  it  would  be  easy  to  make  one  or  two  weirs  across  from  side 
to  side  of  the  valley  to  keep  back  the  water  (as  Riquet  did  at 
Saint-Ferreol,  where  there  are  huge  reservoirs  which  supply 
the  Languedoc  canal);  and  it  would  be  easy  to  increase  the 
volume  of  the  water  by  turning  several  little  streams  in  the 
forest  into  the  river.  Wisely  distributing  it  as  required,  by 
means  of  sluices  and  irrigation  trenches,  the  whole  plain  can 
be  brought  into  cultivation,  and  the  overflow,  besides,  could 
be  turned  into  our  little  river. 

"You  will  have  fine  poplars  along  all  the  channels,  and 
you  will  raise  cattle  in  the  finest  possible  meadows.  What  is 
grass  but  water  and  sun  ?  You  could  grow  corn  in  the  plain, 
there  is  quite  enough  depth  of  earth  ;  with  so  many  trenches 
there  will  be  moisture  to  enrich  the  soil ;  the  poplar  trees  will 
flourish  along  the  channels  and  attract  the  rain-clouds,  and  the 
fields  will  absorb  the  principles  of  the  rain :  these  are  the 
secrets  of  the  luxuriant  greenness  of  the  valleys.  Some 
day  you  will  see  life  and  joy  and  stir  instead  of  this  prevail- 
ing silence  and  barren  dreariness.  Will  not  this  be  a  noble 
prayer?  Will  not  these  things  occupy  your  idleness  better 
than  melancholy  broodings?  " 

Veronique  grasped  the  cure's  hand,  and  made  but  a  brief 
answer,  but  that  answer  was  grand — 

"It  shall  be  done,  monsieur." 

"You  have  a  conception  of  this  great  thing,"  he  began 
again,  "  but  you  will  not  carry  it  out  yourself.  Neither  you 
nor  I  have  knowledge  enough  for  the  realization  of  a  thought 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  149 

which  might  occur  to  any  one,  but  that  raises  immense  prac- 
tical difficulties;  for  simple  and  almost  invisible  as  those  diffi- 
culties are,  they  call  for  the  most  accurate  skill  of  science. 
So  to-morrow  begin  your  search  for  the  human  instruments 
which,  in  a  dozen  years'  time,  will  contrive  that  the  six 
thousand  acres  thus  brought  into  cultivation  shall  yield  you 
an  income  of  six  or  seven  thousand  louis  d'or.  The  under- 
taking will  make  Montegnac  one  of  the  richest  communes  in 
the  department  some  day.  The  forest  brings  in  nothing  as 
yet ;  but  sooner  or  later  buyers  will  come  here  for  the  splendid 
timber,  treasures  slowly  accumulated  by  time,  the  only  treas- 
ures which  man  cannot  procure  save  by  patient  waiting, 
and  cannot  do  without.  Perhaps  some  day  (who  knows) 
the  government  will  take  steps  to  open  up  ways  of  transporting 
timber  grown  here  to  its  dockyards  ;  but  the  government  will 
wait  until  Montegnac  is  ten  times  its  present  size  before  giving 
its  fostering  aid;  for  the  government,  like  fortune,  gives  only 
to  those  who  have.  By  that  time  this  estate  will  be  one  of 
the  finest  in  France;  it  will  be  the  pride  of  your  grandson, 
who  may  possibly  find  the  chateau  too  small  in  proportion  to 
his  income." 

"That  is  a  future  for  me  to  live  for,"  said  Veronique. 

"Such  a  work  might  redeem  many  errors,"  said  the  cure. 

Seeing  that  he  was  understood,  he  endeavored  to  send  a 
last  shaft  home  by  way  of  her  intelligence ;  he  had  divined 
that  in  the  woman  before  him  the  heart  could  only  be  reached 
through  the  brain  ;  whereas,  in  other  women,  the  way  to  the 
brain  lies  through  the  heart. 

"Do  you  know  what  a  great  mistake  you  are  making?" 
he  asked,  after  a  pause. 

She  looked  at  him  with  frightened  eyes. 

"  Your  repentance  as  yet  is  only  the  consciousness  of  a 
defeat.  If  there  is  anything  fearful,  it  is  the  despair  of  Satan  ; 
and  perhaps  man's  repentance  was  like  this  before  Jesus  Christ 
came  on  earth.     But  for  us  Catholics,  repentance  is  the  horror 

S 


150  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

which  seizes  on  a  soul  hurrying  on  its  downward  course,  and 
in  that  shock  God  reveals  Himself.  You  are  like  a  Pagan 
Orestes;  become  a  Saint  Paul !  " 

"Your  words  have  just  wrought  a  complete  change  in  me," 
she  cried.      "  Now,  oh  !  I  want  to  live  !  " 

"The  spirit  has  overcome,"  the  humble  priest  said  to  him- 
self, as  he  went  away,  glad  at  heart.  He  had  found  food  for 
the  secret  despair  which  was  gnawing  Mme.  Graslin,  by  giv- 
ing to  her  repentance  the  form  of  a  good  and  noble  deed. 

The  very  next  day,  therefore,  Veronique  wrote  to  M.  Gros- 
setete,  and  in  answer  to  her  letter  three  saddle-horses  arrived 
from  Limoges  for  her  in  less  than  a  week.  M.  Bonnet  made 
inquiries,  and  sent  the  postmaster's  son  to  the  chateau ;  the 
young  fellow,  Maurice  Champion  by  name,  was  only  too 
pleased  to  put  himself  at  Mme.  Graslin's  disposal,  with  a 
chance  of  earning  some  fifty  crowns.  Veronique  took  a  liking 
for  the  lad — round-faced,  black-eyed,  and  black-haired,  short, 
and  well  built — and  he  was  at  once  installed  as  groom ;  he 
was  to  ride  out  with  his  mistress  and  to  take  charge  of  the 
horses. 

The  head  forester  at  Montegnac  was  a  native  of  Limoges, 
an  61d  quartermaster  in  the  Royal  Guard.  He  had  been 
transferred  from  another  estate  when  the  Due  de  Navarre  ins 
began  to  think  of  selling  the  Montegnac  lands,  and  wanted 
information  to  guide  him  in  the  matter;  but  in  Montegnac 
forest  Jerome  Colorat  only  saw  waste  land,  never  likely  to 
come  under  cultivation,  timber  valueless  for  lack  of  means  of 
transport,  gardens  run  wild,  and  a  castle  in  ruins,  calling  for 
a  vast  outlay  if  it  was  to  be  set  in  order  and  made  habitable. 
He  saw  wide  rock-strewn  spaces  and  conspicuous  gray  patches 
of  granite  even  in  the  forest,  and  the  honest  but  unintelligent 
servant  took  fright  at  these  things.  This  was  how  the  property 
had  come  into  the  market. 

Mme.  Graslin  sent  for  this  forester. 

"Colorat,"  she  said,  "I  shall  most  probably  ride  out  to* 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  151 

morrow  morning  and  every  following  day.  You  should  know 
the  different  bits  of  outlying  land  which  M.  Graslin  added  to 
the  estate,  and  you  must  point  them  out  tome;  I  want  to  see 
everything  for  myself." 

The  servants  at  the  chateau  were  delighted  at  this  change 
in  Veronique's  life.  Aline  found  out  her  mistress'  old  black 
riding  habit,  and  mended  it,  without  being  told  to  do  so,  and 
next  morning,  with  inexpressible  pleasure,  Mme.  Sauviat  saw 
her  daughter  dressed  for  a  riding  excursion.  With  Champion 
and  the  forester  as  her  guides,  Mme.  Graslin  set  herself  first 
of  all  to  climb  the  heights.  She  wanted  to  understand  the 
position  of  the  slopes  and  the  glens,  the  natural  roadways 
cleft  in  the  long  ridge  of  the  mountain.  She  would  measure 
her  task,  study  the  course  of  the  streams,  and  see  the  rough 
material  of  the  cure's  schemes.  The  forester  and  Champion 
were  often  obliged  to  consult  their  memories,  for  the  moun- 
tain paths  were  scarcely  visible  in  that  wild  country.  Colorat 
went  in  front,  and  Champion  followed  a  few  paces  from 
her  side. 

So  long  as  they  kept  in  the  denser  forest,  climbing  and 
descending  the  continual  undulations  of  a  French  mountain 
district,  its  wonders  filled  Veronique's  mind.  The  mighty 
trees  which  had  stood  for  centuries  amazed  her,  until  she  saw 
so  many  that  they  ceased  to  be  a  surprise.  Then  others  suc- 
ceeded, full  grown  and  ready  for  felling;  or  in  a  forest  clear- 
ing some  single  pine  risen  to  giant  height ;  or,  stranger  still, 
some  common  shrub,  a  dwarf  growth  elsewhere,  here  risen, 
under  some  unusual  conditions,  to  the  height  of  a  tree  nearly 
as  old  as  the  soil  in  which  it  grew.  The  wreaths  of  mist 
rolling  over  the  bare  rocks  filled  her  with  indescribable  feel- 
ings. Higher  yet,  pale  furrows  cut  by  the  melting  snows 
looked  like  scars  far  up  on  the  mountain  sides  ;  there  were 
bleak  ravines  in  which  no  plant  grew,  hillside  slopes  where 
the  soil  had  been  washed  away,  leaving  bare  the  rock-clefts, 
where  the  hundred-year-old  chestnuts  grew  straight  and  tall  as 


152  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

pines  in  the  Alps  ;  sometimes  they  went  by  vast  shifting  sands, 
or  boggy  places  where  the  trees  are  few ;  by  fallen  masses  of 
granite,  overhanging  crags,  dark  glens,  wide  stretches  of  burnt 
grass  or  moor,  where  the  heather  was  still  in  bloom,  arid  and 
lonely  spots  where  the  caper  grows  and  the  juniper,  then 
through  meadows  covered  with  fine  short  grass,  where  the  rich 
alluvial  soil  had  been  brought  down  and  deposited  century 
after  century  by  the  mountain  torrents ;  in  short,  this  rapid 
ride  gave  her  something  like  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  land,  a 
glimpse  of  the  dreariness  and  grandeur,  the  strength  and 
sweetness  of  nature's  wilder  moods  in  the  mountain  country 
of  midland  France.  And  by  dint  of  gazing  at  these  pictures 
so  various  in  form,  but  instinct  with  the  same  thought,  the 
deep  sadness  expressed  by  the  wild  ruined  land  in  its  barren- 
ness and  neglect  passed  into  her  own  thoughts,  and  found  a 
response  in  her  secret  soul.  As,  through  some  gap  in  the 
woods,  she  looked  down  on  the  gray  stretch  of  plain  below,  or 
when  their  way  led  up  some  parched  ravine  where  a  few 
stunted  shrubs  starved  among  the  boulders  and  the  sand,  by 
sheer  reiteration  of  the  same  sights  she  fell  under  the  influence 
of  this  stern  scenery;  it  called  up  new  ideas  in  her  mind, 
stirred  to  a  sense  of  the  significance  underlying  these  outward 
and  visible  forms.  There  is  no  spot  in  a  forest  but  has  this 
inner  sense,  not  a  clearing,  not  a  thicket,  but  has  an  analogy 
in  the  labyrinth  of  the  human  thought. 

Who  is  there  with  a  thinking  brain  or  a  wounded  heart 
that  can  pass  through  a  forest  and  find  the  forest  dumb?  Be- 
fore you  are  aware  its  voice  is  in  your  ears,  a  soothing  or  an 
awful  voice,  but  more  often  soothing  than  awful.  And  if 
you  were  to  examine  very  closely  into  the  causes  of  this  sensa- 
tion, this  solemn,  incomplex,  subduing,  and  mysterious  forest- 
influence  that  comes  over  you,  perhaps  you  will  find  its  source 
in  the  sublime  and  subtle  effect  of  the  presence  of  so  many 
creatures  all  obedient  to  their  destinies,  immovable  in  sub- 
mission.    Sooner  or  later  the  overwhelming  sense  of  the  abid- 


MADAME  GRASLW  AT  MONTAgnaC.  153 

ingness  of  nature  fills  your  heart  and  stirs  deeper  feelings, 
until  at  length  you  grow  restless  to  find  God  in  it.  And  so  it 
was  that  the  silence  of  the  mountain  heights  about  her,  out 
in  the  pure  clear  air  with  the  forest  scents  in  it,  Veronique 
recovered,  as  she  told  M.  Bonnet  in  the  evening,  the  certainty 
of  Divine  mercy.  She  had  glimpses  of  the  possibility  of  an 
order  of  things  above  and  beyond  that  in  which  her  musings 
had  hitherto  revolved.  She  felt  something  like  happiness. 
For  a  long  time  past  she  had  not  known  such  peace.  Could 
it  have  been  that  she  was  conscious  of  a  certain  likeness  be- 
tween this  country  and  the  waste  and  dried-up  places  in  her 
own  soul?  Did  she  look  with  a  certain  exultation  on  the 
troubles  of  nature  with  some  thought  that  matter  was  punished 
here  for  no  sin  ?  Certain  it  is  that  her  inner  self  was  strongly 
stirred. 

More  than  once  Colorat  and  Champion  looked  at  her,  and 
then  at  each  other,  as  if  for  them  she  was  transfigured.  One 
spot  in  particular  that  they  reached  in  the  steep  bed  of  a  dry 
torrent  seemed  to  Veronique  to  be  unspeakably  arid.  It  was 
with  a  certain  surprise  that  she  found  herself  longing  to  hear 
the  sound  of  falling  water  in  those  scorching  ravines. 

"  Always  to  love  !  "  she  thought.  The  words  seemed  like 
a  reproach  spoken  aloud  by  a  voice.  In  confusion  she  urged 
her  horse  blindly  up  towards  the  summit  of  the  mountain  of 
the  Correze,  and  in  spite  of  her  guides  dashed  up  to  the  top 
(called  the  Living  Rock),  and  stood  there  alone.  For  several 
moments  she  scanned  the  whole  country  below  her.  She  had 
heard  the  secret  voices  of  so  many  existences  asking  to  live, 
and  now  something  took  place  within  her  that  determined  her 
to  devote  herself  to  this  work  with  all  the  perseverance  which 
she  had  already  displayed  to  admiration.  She  tied  her  horse's 
bridle  to  a  tree  and  sat  down  on  a  slab  of  rock.  Her  eyes 
wandered  over  the  land  where  nature  showed  herself  so  harsh 
a  step-dame,  and  felt  within  her  own  heart  something  of  the 
mother's  yearning  which  she  had  felt  over  her  child.     Her 


154  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

half-unconscious  meditations,  which,  to  use  her  own  beautiful 
metaphor,  "  had  sifted  her  heart,"  had  prepared  her  to  receive 
the  sublime  teaching  of  the  scene  that  lay  before  her. 

"It  was  then,"  she  told  the  cure,  "  that  I  understood  that 
our  souls  need  to  be  tilled  quite  as  much  as  the  land." 

The  pale  November  sunlight  shone  over  the  wide  landscape, 
but  already  a  few  gray  clouds  were  gathering,  driven  across 
the  sky  by  a  cold  west  wind.  It  was  now  about  three  o'clock. 
Veronique  had  taken  four  hours  to  reach  the  point ;  but,  as  is 
the  wont  of  those  who  are  gnawed  by  profound  inward  misery, 
she  gave  no  heed  to  anything  without.  At  that  moment  her 
life  shared  the  sublime  movement  of  nature  and  dilated  within 
her. 

"  Do  not  stay  up  there  any  longer,  madame,"  said  a  man's 
voice,  and  something  in  its  tone  thrilled  her.  "You  cannot 
reach  home  again  in  any  direction  if  you  do,  for  the  nearest 
house  lies  a  couple  of  leagues  away,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
find  your  way  through  the  forest  in  the  dark.  And  even  those 
risks  are  nothing  compared  with  the  risk  you  are  running 
where  you  are  ;  in  a  few  moments  it  will  be  deadly  cold  on 
the  peak;  no  one  knows  the  why  or  wherefore,  but  it  has 
been  the  death  of  many  a  one  before  now." 

Mme.  Graslin,  looking  down,  saw  a  face  almost  black  with 
sunburn,  and  two  eyes  that  gleamed  from  it  like  tongues  of 
fire.  A  shock  of  brown  hair  hung  on  either  side  of  the  face, 
and  a  long  pointed  beard  wagged  beneath  it.  The  owner  of 
the  face  respectfully  raised  one  of  the  great  broad-brimmed 
hats  which  the  peasantry  wear  in  the  midland  districts  of 
France,  and  displayed  a  bald  but  magnificent  brow,  such  as 
sometimes  in  a  poor  man  compels  the  attention  of  passers-by. 
Veronique  felt  not  the  slightest  fear;  for  a  woman  in  such  a 
position  as  hers,  all  the  petty  considerations  which  cause 
feminine  tremors  have  ceased  to  exist. 

"  How  did  you  come  there  ?  "  she  asked  him. 

"  I  live  here,  hard  by,"  the  stranger  answered. 


MADAME  GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  155 

"And  what  do  you  do  in  this  out-of-the-way  place?"  asked 
Veronique. 

"I  live  in  it." 

"  But  how,  and  on  what  do  you  live  ?  " 

"They  pay  me  a  trifle  for  looking  after  this  part  of  the 
forest,"  he  said,  pointing  to  the  slopes  of  the  peak  opposite 
the  plains  of  Montegnac.  As  he  moved,  Mine.  Graslin  caught 
sight  of  a  game-bag  and  the  muzzle  of  a  gun,  and  any  mis- 
givings she  might  have  entertained  vanished  forthwith. 

"  Are  you  a  keeper  ?  " 

"  No,  madame.  You  can't  be  a  keeper  until  you  have  been 
sworn,  and  you  can't  take  the  oath  unless  you  have  all  your 
civic  rights " 

"  Then,  who  are  you  ?  " 

"I  am  Farrabesche,"  said  the  man,  in  deep  humility,  with 
his  eyes  on  the  ground. 

The  name  told  Mme.  Graslin  nothing.  She  looked  at  the 
man  before  her.  In  an  exceedingly  kindly  face  there  were 
signs  of  latent  savagery ;  the  uneven  teeth  gave  an  ironical 
turn,  a  suggestion  of  evil  hardihood  to  the  mouth  and  blood- 
red  lips.  In  person  he  was  of  middle  height,  broad  in  the 
shoulders,  short  in  the  neck,  which  was  very  full  and  deeply 
sunk.  He  had  the  large  hairy  hands  characteristic  of  violent- 
tempered  people  capable  of  abusing  their  physical  advantages. 
His  last  words  suggested  some  mystery,  and  his  bearing,  face, 
and  figure  all  combined  to  give  to  that  mystery  a  terrible 
interpretation. 

"  So  you  are  in  my  employ?  "  Veronique  said  gently. 

"Then  have  I  the  honor  of  speaking  to  Mme.  Graslin  ?" 
asked  Farrabesche. 

"Yes,  my  friend,"  said  she. 

Farrabesche  vanished  with  the  speed  of  some  wild  creature 
after  a  frightened  glance  at  his  mistress.  Veronique  hastily 
mounted  and  went  down  to  her  two  servants ;  the  men  were 
growing  uneasy  about  her,  for  the  inexplicable  unwholesome- 


156  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

ness  of  the  Living  Rock  was  well  known  in  the  country. 
Colorat  begged  her  to  go  down  a  little  valley  into  the  plain. 
"It  would  be  dangerous  to  return  by  the  higher  ground,"  he 
said  \  "  the  tracks  were  hard  to  find,  and  crossed  each  other, 
and  in  spite  of  his  knowledge  of  the  country,  he  might  lose 
himself." 

Once  in  the  plain,  Veronique  slackened  the  pace  of  her 
horse. 

"  Who  is  this  Farrabesche  whom  you  employ?  "  she  asked, 
turning  to  the  head  forester. 

"  Did  madame  meet  him  ?  "  exclaimed  Colorat. 

"  Yes,  but  he  ran  away." 

"Poor  fellow!  Perhaps  he  does  not  know  how  kind 
madame  is." 

"  But,  after  all,  what  has  he  done  ?  " 

"Why,  madame,  Farrabesche  is  a  murderer,"  Champion 
blurted  out. 

"Then,  of  course,  he  was  pardoned,  was  he  not?"  Veron- 
ique asked  in  a  tremulous  voice. 

"No,  madame,"  Colorat  answered.  "Farrabesche  was 
tried  at  the  assizes,  and  condemned  to  ten  years'  penal  ser- 
vitude ;  but  he  only  did  half  his  time,  for  they  let  him  off  the 
rest  of  the  sentence;  he  came  back  from  the  hulks  in  1827. 
He  owes  his  life  to  M.  le  Cure,  who  persuaded  him  to  give 
himself  up.  Judged  by  default,  and  sentenced  to  death,  they 
would  have  caught  him  sooner  or  later,  and  he  would  have 
been  in  a  bad  way.  M.  Bonnet  went  out  to  look  for  him  at 
the  risk  of  his  life.  Nobody  knows  what  he  said  to  Farra- 
besche ;  they  were  alone  for  a  couple  of  days  ;  on  the  third 
he  brought  Farrabesche  back  to  Tulle,  and  there  he  gave  him- 
self up.  M.  Bonnet  went  to  see  a  clever  lawyer,  and  got  him 
to  take  up  Farrabesche's  case  ;  and  Farrabesche  came  off  with 
ten  years  in  jail.  M.  le  Cure  used  to  go  to  see  him  while  he 
was  in  prison  ;  and  that  fellow  yonder,  who  was  a  terror  to 
the  whole  countryside,  grew  as   meek   as  any  maid,  and  let 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  157 

them  take  him  off  to  prison  quietly.  When  he  came  out 
again,  he  settled  down  hereabouts  under  M.  le  Cure's  direc- 
tion. People  mind  what  they  say  to  him ;  he  always  goes  on 
Sundays  and  holidays  to  the  services  and  to  mass.  He  has  a 
seat  in  the  church  along  with  the  rest  of  us,  but  he  always 
keeps  by  himself  close  to  the  wall.  He  takes  the  sacrament 
from  time  to  time,  but  at  the  communion-table  he  keeps 
apart  too." 

"  And  this  man  has  killed  another  man  !  " 

"  One?"  asked  Colorat ;  "  he  has  killed  a  good  many,  he 
has  !      But  he  is  not  a  bad  sort  for  all  that." 

"Is  it  possible?  "  cried  Veronique,  and  in  her  amazement 
she  let  the  bridle  fall  on  the  horse's  neck. 

The  head  forester  asked  nothing  better  than  to  tell  the  tale. 

41  You  see,  madame,"  he  said,  "  Farrabesche  maybe  was  in 
the  right  at  bottom.  He  was  the  last  of  the  Farrabesches,  an 
old  family  in  the  Correze ;  aye,  yes !  His  eldest  brother, 
Captain  Farrabesche,  was  killed  just  ten  years  before  in  Italy, 
at  Montenotte;  only  twenty-two  he  was,  and  a  captain! 
That  is  what  you  might  call  bad  luck,  now,  isn't  it  ?  And  he 
had  a  little  book-learning  too ;  he  could  read  and  write,  and 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  be  a  general.  They  were  sorry 
at  home  when  he  died,  as  well  they  might  be,  indeed  !  I  was 
in  the  army  with  The  Other*  then  ;  and  I  heard  talk  of  his 
death.  Oh  !  Captain  Farrabesche  fell  gloriously ;  he  saved 
the  army,  he  did,  and  the  Little  Corporal  !  I  was  serving  at 
that  time  under  General  Steingel,  a  German — that  is  to  say, 
an  Alsatian — a  fine  soldier  he  was,  but  shortsighted,  and 
that  was  how  he  came  by  his  end,  some  time  after  Captain 
Farrabesche' s.  The  youngest  boy,  that  is,  the  one  yonder,  was 
just  six  years  old  when  he  heard  them  talking  about  his  big 
brother's  death.  The  second  brother  went  into  the  army  too, 
but  he  went  as  a  private  soldier;  and  died  a  sergeant,  first 
regiment  of  the  Guard,  a  fine  post,  at  the  battle  of  Austerlitz, 
*  V Autre,  viz.,  Napoleon. 


158  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

where,  you  see,  madame,  they  manoeuvred  us  all  as  smoothly 
as  if  it  had  been  review  day  at  the  Tuileries.  I  was  there 
myself.  Oh  !  I  was  lucky  ;  I  went  through  it  all,  and  never 
came  in  for  a  single  wound.  Well,  then,  our  Farrabesche,  the 
youngest,  brave  though  he  was,  took  it  into  his  head  that  he 
would  not  go  for  a  soldier.  And  'tis  a  fact,  the  army  did  not 
suit  that  family.  When  the  sub-prefect  wanted  him  in  1811, 
he  took  to  the  woods;  a  'refractory  conscript/  eh!  that's 
what  they  used  to  call  them.  Thereupon  a  gang  of  chauffeurs 
got  hold  of  him  by  fair  means  or  foul,  and  he  took  to  warm- 
ing people's  feet  at  last  !  You  understand  that  Jio  one  except 
M.  le  Cure  knows  what  he  did  along  with  those  rascals,  ask* 
ing  their  pardon  !  Many  a  brush  he  had  with  the  gendarmes, 
and  the  regular  troops  as  well !  First  and  last  he  has  seen 
seven  skirmishes." 

"  People  say  that  he  killed  two  soldiers  and  three  gend- 
armes !  "  put  in  Champion. 

"  Who  is  to  know  how  many  ?  "  Colorat  answered.  "  He 
did  not  tell  them.  At  last,  madame,  all  the  others  were 
caught ;  but  he,  an  active  young  fellow,  knowing  the  country 
as  he  did,  always  got  away.  That  gang  of  chauffeurs  used  to 
hang  on  the  outskirts  of  Brives  and  Tulle,  and  they  would 
often  come  over  here  to  lie  low,  because  Farrabesche  knew 
places  where  they  could  hide  easily.  After  18 14  nobody 
troubled  about  him  any  more,  the  conscription  was  abolished  ; 
but  he  had  to  spend  the  year  18 15  in  the  woods.  As  he  could 
not  sit  down  with  his  arms  folded  and  live,  he  helped  once 
more  to  stop  a  coach  down  below  yonder  in  the  ravine  ;  but 
in  the  end  he  took  M.  le  Cure's  advice,  and  gave  himself  up. 
It  was  not  easy  to  find  witnesses ;  nobody  dared  give  evidence 
against  him.  Then  M.  le  Cure  and  his  lawyer  worked  so 
hard  for  him  that  they  let  him  off  with  ten  years.  He  was 
lucky  after  being  a  chauffeur,  for  a  chauffeur  he  was." 

4<  But  what  is  a  chauffeur?" 

« If  you  like,  rnadamc;  I  will  just  tell  you  the  sort  of  thing 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  159 

they  did,  by  all  that  I  can  make  out  from  one  and  another,  for 
you  will  understand  that  I  was  never  a  chauffeur  myself.  It 
was  not  nice,  but  necessity  knows  no  law.  It  was  like  this: 
if  they  suspected  some  farmer  or  landowner  of  having  money 
in  his  possession,  seven  or  eight  of  them  would  drop  in  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  and  they  would  light  a  fire  and  have 
supper  there  and  then  \  when  supper  was  over,  if  the  master 
of  the  house  would  not  give  them  as  much  money  as  they 
asked,  they  would  tie  his  feet  up  to  the  pot-hook  at  the  back 
of  the  fire,  and  would  not  let  him  go  until  they  had  what  they 
asked  for.  That  was  all.  They  came  in  masks.  With  so 
many  expeditions,  there  were  a  few  mishaps.  Lord!  yes; 
there  are  obstinate  folk  and  stingy  people  everywhere.  There 
was  a  farmer  once,  old  Cochegrue,  a  regular  skinflint  he  was, 
he  let  them  burn  his  feet ;  and,  well,  the  man  died  of  it. 
There  was  M.  David's  wife  too,  not  far  from  Brives  ;  she  died 
afterwards  of  the  fright  they  gave  her,  simply  seeing  them  tie 
her  husband's  feet.  '  Just  give  them  what  you  have  ! '  she 
said  to  him  as  she  went.  He  would  not,  and  she  showed 
them  the  hiding-place.  For  five  years  the  chauffeurs  were  the 
terror  of  the  countryside  ;  but  get  this  well  into  your  pate — I 
beg  pardon,  madame  ! — that  more  than  one  of  them  belonged 
to  good  families,  and  that  sort  of  people  are  not  the  ones  to 
let  themselves  be  nabbed." 

Mme.  Graslin  listened  and  made  no  reply.  There  was  a 
moment's  pause ;  then  young  Champion,  eager  to  interest  his 
mistress  in  his  turn,  was  anxious  to  tell  what  he  knew  of 
Farrabesche. 

''Madame  ought  to  hear  the  whole  truth  of  the  matter. 
Farrabesche  has  not  his  match  on  horseback  or  afoot.  He 
will  fell  an  ox  with  a  blow  of  his  fist  !  He  can  carry  seven- 
hundred  weight,  that  he  can  !  and  there  is  not  a  better  shot 
anywhere.  When  I  was  a  little  chap  they  used  to  tell  me 
tales  about  Farrabesche.  One  day  he  and  three  of  his  com- 
rades were  surprised  ;  they  fought  till  one  was  killed  and  two 


160  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

were  wounded ;  well,  and  good,  Farrabesche  saw  that  he  was 
caught;  bah!  he  jumps  on  a  gendarme's  horse  behind  the 
man,  claps  spurs  to  the  animal,  which  bolts  off  at  a  furious 
gallop  and  is  out  of  sight,  he  gripping  that  gendarme  round 
the  waist  all  the  time ;  he  hugged  the  man  so  tight  that  after 
a  while  he  managed  to  fling  him  off  and  ride  single  in  the 
saddle,  so  he  escaped  and  came  by  a  horse.  And  he  had  the 
impudence  to  sell  it  directly  afterwards  ten  leagues  on  the 
other  side  of  Limoges.  He  lay  in  hiding  for  three  months 
after  that  exploit,  and  no  one  could  find  him.  They  offered  a 
reward  of  a  hundred  louis  to  any  one  who  would  betray  him." 
"Another  time,"  added  Colorat,  "  as  to  those  hundred 
louis  put  on  his  head  by  the  prefect  at  Tulle,  Farrabesche  put 
a  cousin  of  his  in  the  way  of  earning  it — Giriex  it  was,  over 
at  Vizay.  His  cousin  denounced  him,  and  seemed  as  if  he 
meant  to  give  him  up.  Oh  !  he  actually  gave  him  up ;  and 
very  glad  the  gendarmes  were  to  take  him  to  Tulle.  But  he 
did  not  go  far ;  they  had  to  put  him  in  the  prison  at  Lubersac, 
and  he  got  away  the  very  first  night,  by  way  of  a  hole  made 
by  one  of  the  gang,  one  Gabilleau,  a  deserter  from  the  17th, 
executed  at  Tulle,  who  was  moved  away  the  night  before  he 
expected  to  escape.  A  pretty  character  Farrabesche  gained 
by  these  adventures.  The  troop  had  trusty  friends,  you  know. 
And,  besides,  people  liked  the  chauffeurs.  Lord,  they  were 
quite  different  then  from  what  they  are  nowadays,  jolly  fellows 
every  one  of. them,  that  spent  their  money  like  princes. 
Just  imagine  it,  madame ;  finds  the  gendarmes  on  his  track 
one  evening,  does  he?  Well,  he  slipped  through  their  fingers 
that  time  by  lying  twenty-four  hours  in  a  pond  in  a  farmyard, 
drawing  his  breath  through  a  hole  in  the  straw  at  the  edge  of 
a  dung-heap.  What  did  a  little  discomfort  like  that  matter  to 
him  when  he  had  spent  whole  nights  up  among  the  little 
branches  at  the  very  top  of  a  tree  where  a  sparrow  could 
hardly  hold,  watching  the  soldiers  looking  for  him,  passing 
and  repassing  below.     Farrabesche  was  one  of  the  five  or  six 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  161 

chauffeurs  whom  they  never  could  catch  ;  for  as  he  was  a 
fellow-countryman,  and  joined  the  gang  perforce  (for,  after 
all,  he  only  took  to  the  woods  to  escape  the  conscription),  all 
the  women  took  his  part,  and  that  counts  for  much." 

"  So  Farrabesche  has  really  killed  several  men,"  Mme. 
Graslin  said  again. 

"  Certainly,"  Colorat  replied  ;  "•  they  even  say  that  it  was 
he  who  murdered  the  traveler  in  the  coach  in  1812  ;  but  the 
courier  and  postillion,  the  only  witnesses  who  could  have 
identified  him,  were  dead  when  he  came  up  for  trial." 

"And  the  robbery?"  asked  Mme.  Graslin. 

"  Oh  !  They  took  all  there  was  ;  but  the  five-and- twenty 
thousand  francs  which  they  found  belonged  to  the  govern- 
ment." 

For  another  league  Mme.  Graslin  rode  on  in  silence.  The 
sun  had  set,  and  in  the  moonlight  the  gray  plain  loojced  like 
the  open  sea.  Once  or  twice  Champion  and  Colorat  looked 
at  Mme.  Graslin,  for  her  silence  made  them  uneasy,  and  both 
were  greatly  disturbed  to  see  that  her  eyes  were  red  with  much 
weeping  and  full  of  tears,  which  fell  drop  by  drop  and  glit- 
tered on  her  cheeks. 

"Oh!  don't  be  sorry  for  him,  madame,"  said  Colorat. 
"The  fellow  led  a  jolly  life,  and  has  had  pretty  sweethearts. 
And  if  the  police  keep  an  eye  on  him  now,  he  is  protected  by 
M.  le  Cure's  esteem  and  friendship ;  for  he  repented,  and  in 
the  convict's  prison  behaved  in  the  most  exemplary  way. 
Everybody  knows  that  he  is  as  good  as  the  best  among  us ; 
only  he  is  so  proud,  he  has  no  mind  to  lay  himself  open  to  any 
slight,  but  he  lives  peaceably  and  does  good  after  his  fashion. 
Over  the  other  side  of  the  Living  Rock  he  has  ten  acres  or 
so  of  young  saplings  of  his  own  planting ;  and  when  he  sees 
a  place  for  a  tree  in  the  forest,  he  will  stick  one  of  them  in. 
Then  he  lops  off  the  dead  branches,  and  collects  the  wood, 
and  does  it  up  in  faggots  ready  for  poor  people.  And  the 
poor  people,  knowing  that  they  can  have  firewood  all  ready 
11 


162  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

for  the  asking,  go  to  him  instead  of  helping  themselves  and 
damaging  your  woods.  So  if  he  still  '  warms  people's  feet,' 
as  you  may  say,  it  does  them  good  now.  Farrabesche  is  fond 
of  your  forest ;  he  looks  after  it  as  if  it  were  his  own." 

"And   yet   he  lives! quite   alone."      Mme.    Graslin 

hastily  added  the  last  two  words. 

"Asking  your  pardon,  madame,  no.  He  is  bringing  up  a 
little  lad ;  going  fifteen  now  he  is,"  said  Maurice  Champion. 

"Faith,  yes,  that  he  is,"  Colorat  remarked,  "for  La 
Curieux  had  that  child  a  good  while  before  Farrabesche  gave 
himself  up." 

"  Is  it  his  son  ?  "  asked  Mme.  Graslin. 

"Well,  every  one  thinks  so." 

"  And  why  did  he  not  marry  the  girl  ?  " 

"Why?  Because  they  would  have  caught  him!  And, 
besides,  when  La  Curieux  knew  that  he  was  condemned,  she 
left  the  neighborhood,  poor  thing." 

"  Was  she  pretty?" 

"  Oh,  my  mother  says  that  she  was  very  much  like — dear 
me !  another  girl  who  left  the  place  too — very  much  like 
Denise  Tascheron." 

"  Was  he  loved  ?  "  asked  Mme.  Graslin. 

"Bah!  yes,  because  he  was  a  chauffeur  J '"  said  Colorat. 
"  The  women  always  fall  in  love  with  anything  out  of  the 
way.  But  for  all  that,  nothing  astonished  people  hereabouts 
so  much  as  this  love  affair.  Catherine  Curieux  was  a  good 
girl  who  lived  like  a  virgin  saint ;  she  was  looked  on  as  a  par- 
agon of  virtue  in  her  neighborhood  over  at  Vizay,  a  large 
village  in  the  Correze,  on  the  boundary  of  two  departments. 
Her  father  and  mother  were  tenants  of  M.  Brezac's.  Cathe- 
rine Curieux  was  quite  seventeen  years  old  at  the  time  of 
Farrabesche's  sentence.  The  Farrabesches  were  an  old  family 
out  of  the  same  district,  but  they  settled  on  the  Montegnac 
lands  ;  they  had  the  largest  farm  in  the  village.  Farrabesche's 
father  and  mother  are  dead  now,   and   La  Curieux's  three 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  163 

sisters  are  married ;  one  lives  at  Aubusson,  one  at  Limoges, 
and  one  at  Saint-Leonard." 

"  Do  you  think  that  Farrabesche  knows  where  Catherine 
is?"  asked  Mme.  Graslin. 

"If  he  knew,  he  would  break  his  bounds.     Oh  !  he  would 

go   to  her As  soon  as  he  came  back  he  asked  her  father 

and  mother  (through  M.  Bonnet)  for  the  child.  La  Curieux's 
father  and  mother  were  taking  care  of  the  child ;  M.  Bonnet 
persuaded  them  to  give  him  up  to  Farrabesche." 

**  Does  nobody  know  what  became  of  her?  " 

"  Bah  !  "  said  Colorat.  "  The  lass  thought  herself  ruined, 
she  was  afraid  to  stop  in  the  place !  She  went  to  Paris. 
What  does  she  do  there?  That  is  the  rub.  As  for  looking 
for  her  in  Paris,  you  might  as  well  try  to  find  a  marble  among 
the  flints  there  in  the  plain." 

Colorat  pointed  to  the  plain  of  Montegnac  as  he  spoke. 
By  this  time  Mme.  Graslin  was  only  a  few  paces  from  the 
great  gateway  of  the  chateau.  Mme.  Sauviat,  in  anxiety,  was 
waiting  there  for  her  with  Aline  and  the  servants;  they  did 
not  know  what  to  think  of  so  long  an  absence. 

"  Well,"  said  Mme.  Sauviat,  as  she  helped  her  daughter  to 
dismount,  "you  must  be  horribly  tired." 

"  No,  dear  mother,"  Mme.  Graslin  answered,  in  an  un- 
steady voice,  and  Mme.  Sauviat,  looking  at  her  daughter,  saw 
that  she  had  been  weeping  for  a  long  time. 

Mme.  Graslin  went  into  the  house  with  Aline,  her  confiden- 
tial servant,  and  shut  herself  into  her  room.  She  would  not 
see  her  mother;  and  when  Mme.  Sauviat  tried  to  enter,  Aline 
met  the  old  Auvergnate  with  "  Madame  is  asleep." 

The  next  morning  Veronique  set  out  on  horseback,  with 
Maurice  as  her  sole  guide.  She  took  the  way  by  which  they 
had  returned  the  evening  before,  so  as  to  reach  the  Living 
Rock  as  quickly  as  might  be.  As  they  climbed  up  the  ravine 
which  separates  the  last  ridge  in  the  forest  from  the  actual 


164  THE   COLNTRY  PARSON. 

summit  of  the  mountain  (for  the  Living  Rock,  seen  from  the 
plain,  seems  to  stand  alone),  Veronique  bade  Maurice  show 
her  the  way  to  Farrabesche's  cabin  and  wait  with  the  horses 
until  she  came  back.  She  meant  to  go  alone.  Maurice  went 
with  her  as  far  as  a  pathway  which  turned  off  towards  the 
opposite  side  of  the  Living  Rock,  farthest  from  the  plain,  and 
pointed  out  the  thatched  roof  of  a  cottage  half-hidden  on 
the  mountain  side ;  below  it  lay  the  nursery-ground  of  which 
Colorat  had  spoken. 

It  was  almost  noon.  A  thin  streak  of  smoke  rising  from 
the  cottage  chimney  guided  Veronique,  who  soon  reached  the 
place,  but  would  not  show  herself  at  first.  At  the  sight  of 
the  little  dwelling,  and  the  garden  about  it,  with  its  fence  of 
dead  thorns,  she  stood  for  a  few  moments  lost  in  thoughts 
known  to  her  alone.  Several  acres  of  grass  land,  enclosed  by 
a  quickset  hedge,  wound  away  beyond  the  garden ;  the  low- 
spreading  branches  of  apple  and  pear  and  plum  trees  were 
visible  here  and  there  in  the  field.  Above  the  house,  on  the 
sandier  soil  of  the  high  mountain  slopes,  there  rose  a  splendid 
grove  of  tall  chestnut  trees,  their  topmost  leaves  turned  yellow 
and  sere. 

Mme.  Graslin  pushed  open  the  crazy  wicket  which  did  duty 
as  a  gate,  and  saw  before  her  the  shed,  the  little  yard,  and  all 
the  picturesque  and  living  details  of  the  dwellings  of  the  poor. 
Something  surely  of  the  grace  of  the  open  fields  hovers  about 
them.  Who  is  there  that  is  not  moved  by  the  revelation  of 
lowly,  almost  vegetative  lives — the  clothes  drying  on  the 
hedge,  the  rope  of  onions  hanging  from  the  roof,  the  iron 
cooking  pots  set  out  in  the  sun,  the  wooden  bench  hidden 
among  the  honeysuckle  leaves,  the  houseleeks  that  grow  on 
the  ridges  of  almost  every  thatched  hovel  in  France? 

Veronique  found  it  impossible  to  appear  unannounced  in 
her  keeper's  cottage,  for  two  fine  hunting-dogs  began  to  bark 
as  soon  as  they  heard  the  rustle  of  her  riding  habit  on  the 
dead  leaves ;  she  gathered  up  her  skirts  on  her  arm,  and  went 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  165 

towards  the  house.  Farrabesche  and  the  boy  were  sitting  on 
a  wooden  bench  outside.  Both  rose  to  their  feet  and  uncov- 
ered respectfully,  but  without  a  trace  of  servility. 

"  I  have  been  told  that  you  are  seeing  after  my  interests," 
said  Veronique,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  lad ;  "so  I  deter- 
mined to  see  your  cottage  and  nursery  of  saplings  for  myself, 
and  to  ask  you  about  some  improvements." 

"I  am  at  your  service,  madame,"  replied  Farrabesche. 

Veronique  was  admiring  the  lad.  It  was  a  charming  face ; 
somewhat  sunburned  and  brown,  but  in  shape  a  faultless  oval ; 
the  outlines  of  the  forehead  were  delicately  fine,  the  orange- 
colored  eyes  exceedingly  bright  and  alert ;  the  long  dark  hair, 
parted  on  the  forehead,  fell  upon  either  side  of  the  brow. 
Taller  than  most  boys  of  his  age,  he  was  very  nearly  five  feet 
high.  His  trousers  were  of  the  same  coarse  brown  linen  as 
his  shirt ;  he  wore  a  threadbare  waistcoat  of  rough  blue  cloth 
with  horn  buttons,  a  short  jacket  of  the  material  facetiously 
described  as  "  Maurienne  velvet,"  in  which  Savoyards  are 
wont  to  dress,  and  a  pair  of  iron-bound  shoes  on  his  otherwise 
bare  feet  to  complete  the  costume.  His  father  was  dressed  in 
the  same  fashion  ;  but  instead  of  the  little  lad's  brown  woolen 
cap,  Farrabesche  wore  the  wide-brimmed  peasant's  hat.  In 
spite  of  its  quick  intelligence,  the  child's  face  bore  the  look 
of  gravity  (evidently  unforced)  peculiar  to  young  creatures 
brought  up  in  solitude  ;  he  must  have  put  himself  in  harmony 
with  the  silence  and  the  life  of  the  forest.  Indeed,  in  both 
Farrabesche  and  his  son  the  physical  side  of  their  natures 
seemed  to  be  the  most  highly  developed ;  they  possessed  the 
peculiar  faculties  of  the  savage — the  keen  sight,  the  alertness, 
the  complete  mastery  of  the  body  as  an  instrument,  the  quick 
hearing,  the  signs  of  activity  and  intelligent  skill.  No  sooner 
did  the  boy's  eyes  turn  to  his  father  than  Mme.  Graslin 
divined  that  here  was  the  limitless  affection  in  which  the 
promptings  of  natural  instinct  and  deliberate  thought  were 
confirmed  by  the  most  effectual  happiness. 


166  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"  Is  this  the  child  of  whom  I  have  heard  ?  "  asked  Veron- 
ique,  indicating  the  lad. 

"  Yes,  madame." 

Veronique  signed  to  Farrabesche  to  come  a  few  paces  away. 
"But  have  you  taken  no  steps  towards  finding  his  mother?  " 
she  asked. 

"  Madame  does  not  know,  of  course,  that  I  am  not  allowed 
to  go  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  commune  where  I  am  liv- 
ing  " 

"  And  have  you  never  heard  of  her  ?  " 

"  When  my  time  was  out,"  he  said,  "  the  commissary  paid 
over  to  me  the  sum  of  a  thousand  francs,  which  had  been 
sent  me,  a  little  at  a  time,  every  quarter ;  the  rules  would  not 
allow  me  to  have  it  until  I  came  out.  I  thought  that  no  one 
but  Catherine  would  have  thought  of  me,  as  it  was  not  M. 
Bonnet  who  sent  it ;  so  I  am  keeping  the  money  for  Benja- 
min." 

"And  how  about  Catherine's  relations?" 

"  They  thought  no  more  about  her  after  she  went  away.  Be- 
sides, they  did  their  part  by  looking  after  the  child." 

Veronique  turned  to  go  towards  the  house. 

"Very  well,  Farrabesche,"  she  said  ;  "  I  will  have  inquiry 
made,  so  as  to  make  sure  that  Catherine  is  still  living,  and 
where  she  is,  and  what  kind  of  life  she  is  leading "    - 

"Madame,  whatever  she  may  be,  I  shall  look  upon  it  as 
good  fortune  to  have  her  for  my  wife,"  the  man  cried  in  a 
softened  tone.  "It  is  for  her  to  show  reluctance,  not  for  me. 
Our  marriage  will  legitimate  the  poor  boy,  who  has  no  suspi- 
cion yet  of  how  he  stands." 

The  look  in  the  father's  eyes  told  the  tale  of  the  life  these 
two  outcasts  led  in  their  voluntary  exile;  they  were  all  in  all 
to  each  other,  like  two  fellow-countrymen  in  the  midst  of  a 
desert. 

"  So  you  love  Catherine?  "  asked  Veronique. 

"  It  is  not  so  much  that  I  love  her,  madame,"  he  answered, 


MADAME    GKASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  167 

"  as  that,  placed  as  I  am,  she  is  the  one  woman  in  the  world 
for  me." 

Mme.  Graslin  turned  swiftly,  and  went  as  far  as  the  chestnut 
trees,  as  if  some  pang  had  shot  through  her.  The  keeper 
thought  that  this  was  some  whim  of  hers,  and  did  not  ven- 
ture to  follow.  For  nearly  a  quarter  of  an  hour  she  sat, 
apparently  engaged  in  looking  out  over  the  landscape.  She 
could  see  all  that  part  of  the  forest  which  lay  along  the  side 
of  the  valley,  with  the  torrent  in  the  bottom  ;  it  was  dry  now, 
and  full  of  boulders,  a  sort  of  huge  ditch  shut  in  between  the 
forest-covered  mountains  above  Montegnac  and  another 
parallel  range,  these  last  hills  being  steep  though  low,  and  so 
bare  that  there  was  scarcely  so  much  as  a  starveling  tree  here 
and  there  to  crown  the  slopes,  where  a  few  rather  melancholy- 
looking  birches,  juniper  bushes,  and  briars  were  trying  to 
grow.  This  second  range  belonged  to  a  neighboring  estate, 
and  lay  in  the  department  of  the  Correze  ;  indeed,  the  cross- 
road which  meanders  along  the  winding  valley  is  the  bound- 
ary line  of  the  arrondissement  of  Montegnac,  and  also  of  the 
two  estates.  The  opposite  side  of  the  valley  beyond  the  tor- 
rent was  quite  unsheltered  and  barren  enough.  It  was  a  sort 
of  long  wall  with  a  slope  of  fine  woodland  behind  it,  and  a 
complete  contrast  in  its  bleakness  to  the  side  of  the  mountain 
on  which  Farrabesche's  cottage  stood.  Gnarled  and  twisted 
forms  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  shapely  growths  and 
delicate  curving  lines ;  on  the  one  side  the  dreary,  unchanging 
silence  of  a  sloping  desert,  held  in  place  by  blocks  of  stone 
and  bare,  denuded  rocks,  and  on  the  other,  the  contrasts  of 
green  among  the  trees.  Many  of  them  were  leafless  now,  but 
the  fine  variegated  tree-trunks  stood  up  straight  and  tall  on 
each  ledge,  and  the  branches  waved  as  the  wind  stirred 
through  them.  A  few  of  them,  the  oaks,  elms,  beeches,  and 
chestnuts  which  held  out  longer  against  the  autumn  than  the 
rest,  still  retained  their  leaves — golden,  or  bronze,  or  purple. 

In  the  direction   of  Montegnac   the  valley  opens  out  so 


168  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

widely  that  the  two  sides  describe  a  vast  horsehoe.  Veronique, 
with  her  back  against  a  chestnut  tree,  could  see  glen  after  glen 
arranged  like  the  stages  of  an  amphitheatre,  the  topmost 
crests  of  the  trees  rising  one  above  the  other  in  rows  like  the 
heads  of  spectators.  On  the  other  side  of  the  ridge  lay  her 
own  park,  in  which,  at  a  later  time,  this  beautiful  hillside  was 
included.  Near  Farrabesche's  cottage  the  valley  grew  nar- 
rower and  narrower,  till  it  closed  in  as  a  gully  scarce  a  hun- 
dred feet  across. 

The  beauty  of  the  view  over  which  Mme.  Graslin's  eyes 
wandered,  heedlessly  at  first,  soon  recalled  her  to  herself. 
She  went  back  to  the  cottage,  where  the  father  and  son  were 
standing  in  silence,  making  no  attempt  to  explain  the  strange 
departure  of  their  mistress.  Veronique  looked  at  the  house. 
It  was  more  solidly  built  than  the  thatched  roof  had  led  her 
to  suppose ;  doubtless  it  had  been  left  to  go  to  ruin  at  the 
time  when  the  Navarreins  ceased  to  trouble  themselves  about 
the  estate.  No  sport,  no  gamekeepers.  But  though  no  one 
had  lived  in  it  for  a  century,  the  walls  held  good  in  spite  of 
the  ivy  and  climbing  plants  which  clung  about  them  on  every 
side.  Farrabesche  himself  had  thatched  the  roof  when  he 
received  permission  to  live  there ;  he  had  laid  the  stone-flags 
on  the  floor,  and  brought  in  such  furniture  as  there  was. 

Veronique  went  inside  the  cottage.  Two  beds,  such  as  the 
peasants  use,  met  her  eyes;  there  was  a  large  cupboard  of 
walnut-wood,  a  hutch  for  bread,  a  dresser,  a  table,  three 
chairs,  a  few  brown  earthen  platters  on  the  shelves  of  the 
dresser ;  in  fact,  all  the  necessary  household  gear.  A  couple 
of  guns  and  a  game-bag  hung  above  the  mantle-shelf.  It  went 
to  Veronique's  heart  to  see  how  many  things  the  father  had 
made  for  the  little  one ;  there  was  a  toy  man-of-war,  a  fishing 
smack,  and  a  carved  wooden  cup,  a  chest  wonderfully  orna- 
mented, a  little  box  decorated  with  mosaic  work  in  straw,  a 
beautifully-wrought  crucifix  and  rosary.  The  rosary  was  made 
of  plum-stones ;  on  each  a  head  had  been  carved  with  wonder- 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  169 

ful  skill — Jesus  Christ,  the  Apostles,  the  Madonna,  St.  John 
the  Baptist,  St.  Anne,  the  two  Magdalens. 

"  I  did  it  to  amuse  the  child  during  the  long  winter  even- 
ings," he  said,  with  something  of  apology  in  his  tone. 

Jessamine  and  climbing  roses  covered  the  front  of  the 
house,  and  broke  into  blossom  about  the  upper  windows. 
Farrabesche  used  the  first  floor  as  a  storeroom;  he  kept 
poultry,  ducks,  and  a  couple  of  pigs,  and  bought  nothing  but 
bread,  salt,  sugar,  and  such  groceries  as  they  needed.  Neither 
he  nor  the  lad  drank  wine. 

"Everything  that  I  have  seen  and  heard  of  you,"  Mme. 
Graslin  said  at  last,  turning  to  Farrabesche,  "  has  led  me  to 
take  an  interest  in  you  which  shall  not  come  to  nothing." 

"This  is  M.  Bonnet's  doing,  I  know  right  well !  "  cried 
Farrabesche  with  touching  fervor. 

'•*  You  are  mistaken  ;  M.  le  Cure  has  said  nothing  to  me  of 
you  as  yet ;  chance  or  God,  it  may  be,  has  brought  it  all 
about." 

"Yes,  madame,  it  is  God's  doing;  God  alone  can  work 
wonders  for  such  a  wretch  as  I." 

"  If  your  life  has  been  a  wretched  one,"  said  Mme.  Graslin, 
in  tones  so  low  that  they  did  not  reach  the  boy  (a  piece  of 
womanly  feeling  which  touched  Farrabesche),  "  your  repent- 
ance, your  conduct,  and  M.  Bonnet's  good  opinion  should  go 
far  to  retrieve  it.  I  have  given  orders  that  the  buildings  on 
the  large  farm  near  the  chateau  which  M.  Graslin  planned  are 
to  be  finished ;  you  shall  be  my  steward  there ;  you  will  find 
scope  for  your  energies  and  employment  for  your  son.  The 
public  prosecutor  at  Limoges  shall  be  informed  of  your  case, 
and  I  will  engage  that  the  humiliating  restrictions  which  make 
your  life  a  burden  to  you  shall  be  removed." 

Farrabesche  dropped  down  on  his  knees  as  if  thunderstruck 
at  the  words  which  opened  out  a  prospect  of  the  realization  of 
hopes  hitherto  cherished  in  vain.  He  kissed  the  hem  of  Mme. 
Graslin's  riding  habit ;  he  kissed  her  feet.     Benjamin  saw  the 


170  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

tears  in  his  father's  eyes,  and  began  to  sob  without  knowing 
why. 

"Do  not  kneel,  Farrabesche,"  said  Mmc.Graslin  ;  "you 
do  not  know  how  natural  it  is  that  I  should  do  for  you  these 

things  that  I  have  promised  to  do Did  you  not  plant 

those  trees?"  she  added,  pointing  to  one  or  two  pitch-pines, 
Norway  pines,  firs,  and  larches  at  the  base  of  the  arid,  thirsty 
hillside  opposite. 

"Yes,  madame." 

"Then  is  the  soil  better  just  there?" 

"  The  water  is  always  wearing  the  rocks  away,  so  there  is  a 
little  light  soil  washed  down  on  to  your  land,  and  I  took  ad- 
vantage of  it,  for  all  the  valley  down  below  the  road  belongs 
to  you  ;  the  road  is  the  boundary  line." 

"  Then  does  a  good  deal  of  water  flow  down  the  length  of 
the  valley?" 

"  Oh  !  in  a  few  days,  madame,  if  the  weather  sets  in  rainy, 
you  will  maybe  hear  the  roaring  of  the  torrent  over  at  the 
chateau  !  but  even  then  it  is  nothing  compared  with  what  it 
will  be  when  the  snow  melts.  All  the  water  from  the  whole 
mountain  side  there  at  the  back  of  your  park  and  gardens 
flows  into  it ;  in  fact,  all  the  streams  hereabouts  flow  down  to 
the  torrent,  and  the  water  comes  down  like  a  deluge.  Luckily 
for  you,  the  tree-roots  on  your  side  of  the  valley  bind  the 
soil  together,  and  the  water  slips  off  the  leaves,  for  the  fallen 
leaves  here  in  autumn  are  like  an  oilcloth  cover  for  the  land, 
or  it  would  all  be  washed  down  into  the  valley  bottom,  and 
the  bed  of  the  torrent  is  so  steep  that  I  doubt  whether  the 
soil  would  stop  there." 

"What  becomes  of  all  the  water?"   asked  Mme.  Graslin. 

Farrabesche  pointed  to  the  gully  which  seemed  to  shut  in 
the  valley  below  his  cottage. 

"  It  pours  out  over  a  chalky  bit  of  level  ground  that  sepa- 
rates Limousin  from  the  Correze,  and  there  it  lies  for  several 
months  in  stagnant  green  pools,  sinking  slowly  down  into  the 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTE GNAC.  171 

soil.  That  is  how  the  common  came  to  be  so  unhealthy  that 
no  one  lives  there,  and  nothing  can  be  done  with  it.  No  kind 
of  cattle  will  pasture  on  the  reeds  and  rushes  in  those  brackish 
pools.  Perhaps  there  are  three  thousand  acres  of  it  altogether; 
it  is  the  common  land  of  three  parishes  ;  but  it  is  just  like  the 
plain  of  Montegnac,  you  can  do  nothing  with  it.  And  down 
in  your  plain  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  sand  and  a  little 
soil  among  the  flints,  but  here  there  is  nothing  but  the  bare 
tufa." 

"  Send  for  the  horses  ;  I  mean  to  see  all  this  for  myself." 

Mme.  Graslin  told  Benjamin  where  she  had  left  Maurice, 
and  the  lad  went  forthwith. 

"  They  tell  me  that  you  know  every  yard  of  this  country," 
Mme.  Graslin  continued;  "can  you  explain  to  me  how  it 
happens  that  no  water  flows  into  the  plain  of  Montegnac  from 
my  side  of  the  ridge?  there  is  not  the  smallest  torrent  there 
even  in  rainy  weather  or  in  the  time  of  the  melting  of  the 
snows." 

"Ah  !  madame,"  Farrabesche  answered,  tl  M.  le  Cure,  who 
is  always  thinking  of  the  prosperity  of  Montegnac,  guessed  the 
cause,  but  had  not  proof  of  it.  Since  you  came  here,  he  told 
me  to  mark  the  course  of  every  runnel  in  every  little  valley. 
I  had  been  looking  at  the  lay  of  the  land  yesterday,  and  was 
on  my  way  back  when  I  had  the  honor  of  meeting  you  at  the 
base  of  the  Living  Rock.  I  heard  the  sound  of  horsehoofs, 
and  I  wanted  to  know  who  was  passing  this  way.  Madame, 
M.  Bonnet  is  not  only  a  saint,  he  is  a  man  of  science.  *■  Far- 
rabesche,' said  he  (I  being  at  work  at  the  time  on  the  road 
which  the  commune  finished  up  to  the  chateau  for  you) — 
'  Farrabesche,  if  no  water  from  this  side  of  the  hill  reaches 
the  plain  below,  it  must  be  because  nature  has  some  sort  of 
drainage  arrangement  for  carrying  it  off  elsewhere.'  Well, 
madame,  the  remark  is  so  simple  that  it  looks  downright  trite, 
as  if  any  child  might  have  made  it.  But  nobody  since  Mon- 
tegnac was  Montegnac,  neither  great  lords,  nor  stewards,  nor 


172  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

keepers,  nor  rich,  nor  poor,  though  the  plain  lay  there  before 
their  eyes  with  nothing  growing  on  it  for  want  of  water, 
not  one  of  them  ever  thought  of  asking  what  became  of  the 
water  in  the  Gabou.  The  stagnant  water  gives  them  the  fever 
in  three  communes,  but  they  never  thought  of  looking  for  the 
remedy ;  and  I  myself  never  dreamed  of  it ;  it  took  a  man  of 
God  to  see  that " 

Farrabesche's  eyes  filled  with  tears  as  he  spoke. 

"  The  discoveries  of  men  of  genius  are  all  so  simple,  that 
every  one  thinks  he  could  have  found  them  out,"  said  Mme. 
Graslin;  and  to  herself  she  added,  "But  there  is  this  grand 
thing  about  genius,  that  while  it  is  akin  to  all  others,  no  one 
resembles  it." 

"At  once  I  saw  what  M.  Bonnet  meant,"  Farrabesche  went 
on.  "  He  had  not  to  use  a  lot  of  long  words  to  explain  my 
job  to  me.  To  make  the  thing  all  the  queerer,  madame,  all 
the  ridge  above  your  plain  (for  it  all  belongs  to  you)  is  full 
of  pretty  deep  cracks,  ravines,  and  gullies,  and  whatnot ;  but 
all  the  water  that  flows  down  the  valleys,  clefts,  ravines,  and 
gorges,  every  channel,  in  fact,  empties  itself  into  a  little  valley 
a  few  feet  lower  than  the  level  of  your  plain,  madame.  I 
know  the  cause  of  this  state  of  things  to-day,  and  here  it  is : 
There  is  a  sort  of  embankment  of  rock  (schist,  M.  Bonnet 
calls  it)  twenty  or  thirty  feet  thick,  which  runs  in  an  unbroken 
line  all  round  the  bases  of  the  hills  between  Montegnac  and 
the  Living  Rock.  The  earth  being  softer  than  the  stone,  has 
been  worn  away  and  been  hollowed  out ;  so,  naturally  the 
water  all  flows  round  into  the  Gabou,  eating  its  passage  out 
of  each  valley.  The  trees  and  thickets  and  brushwood  hide 
the  lay  of  the  land  ;  but  when  you  follow  the  streams  and  track 
their  passage,  it  is  easy  to  convince  yourself  of  the  facts.  In 
this  way  both  hillsides  drain  into  the  Gabou,  all  the  water  from 
this  side  that  we  see,  and  the  other  over  the  ridge  where  your 
park  lies,  as  well  as  from  the  rocks  opposite.  M.  le  Cure 
thinks  that  this  state  of  things  would  work  its  own  cure  when 


MADAME  GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  173 

the  water-courses  on  your  side  of  the  ridge  are  blocked  up  at 
the  mouth  by  the  rocks  and  soil  washed  down  from  above,  so 
that  they  raise  barriers  between  themselves  and  the  Gabou. 
When  that  time  comes  your  plain  will  be  flooded  in  turn  like 
the  common  land  you  are  just  about  to  see  ;  but  it  would  take 
hundreds  of  years  to  bring  that  about.  And,  besides,  is  it  a 
thing  to  wish  for,  madame?  Suppose  that  your  plain  of 
Montegnac  should  not  suck  up  all  that  water,  like  the  common 
land  here,  there  would  be  some  more  standing  pools  there  to 
poison  the  whole  country." 

"So  the  places  M.  le  Cure  pointed  out  to  me  a  few  days 
ago,  where  the  trees  are  still  green,  must  mark  the  natural 
channels  through  which  the  water  flows  down  into  the  Gabou?" 

"  Yes,  madame.  There  are  three  hills  between  the  Living 
Rock  and  Montegnac,  and  consequently  there  are  three  water- 
courses, and  the  streams  that  flow  down  them,  banked  in  by 
the  schist  barrier,  turn  to  the  Gabou.  That  belt  of  wood  still 
green,  round  the  base  of  the  hills,  looks  as  if  it  were  part  of 
your  plain,  but  it  marks  the  course  of  the  channel  which  was 
there,  as  M.  le  Cure  guessed  it  would  be." 

"  The  misfortune  will  soon  turn  to  a  blessing  for  Mon- 
tegnac," said  Mine.  Graslin,  with  deep  conviction  in  her 
tones.  "And  since  you  have  been  the  first  instrument,  you 
shall  share  in  the  work ;  you  shall  find  active  and  willing 
workers,  for  hard  work  and  perseverance  must  make  up  for  the 
money  which  we  lack." 

Mine.  Graslin  had  scarcely  finished  the  sentence  when  Ben- 
jamin and  Maurice  came  up;  she  caught  at  her  horse's  bridle, 
and,  by  a  gesture,  bade  Farrabesche  mount  Maurice's  horse. 

"Now  bring  me  to  the  place  where  the  water  drowns  the 
common  land,"  she  said. 

"  It  will  be  so  much  the  better  that  you  should  go,  madame, 
since  that  the  late  M.  Graslin,  acting  on  M.  Bonnet's  advice, 
bought  about  three  hundred  acres  of  land  at  the  mouth  of  the 
gully  where  the  mud  has  been  deposited  by  the  torrent,  so 


114  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

that  over  a  certain  area  there  is  some  depth  of  rich  soil. 
Madame  will  see  the  other  side  of  the  Living  Rock  ;  there  is 
some  magnificent  timber  there,  and  doubtless  M.  Graslin 
would  have  had  a  farm  on  the  spot.  The  best  situation  would 
be  a  place  where  the  little  stream  that  rises  near  my  house 
sinks  into  the  ground  again ;  it  might  be  turned  to  advan- 
tage." 

Farrabesche  led  the  way,  and  Veronique  followed  down  a 
steep  path  towards  a  spot  where  the  two  sides  of  the  gully 
drew  in,  and  then  separated  sharply  to  east  and  west,  as  if 
divided  by  some  earthquake  shock.  "  The  gully  was  about  sixty 
feet  across.  Tall  grasses  were  growing  among  the  huge 
boulders  in  the  bottom.  On  the  one  side  the  Living  Rock, 
cut  to  the  quick,  stood  up  a  solid  surface  of  granite  without 
the  slightest  flaw  in  it ;  but  the  height  of  the  uncompromising 
rock-wall  was  crowned  with  the  overhanging  roots  of  trees, 
for  the  pines  clutched  the  soil  with  their  branching  roots, 
seeming  to  grasp  the  granite  as  a  bird  clings  to  a  bough ;  but 
on  the  other  side  the  rock  was  yellow  and  sandy,  and  hollowed 
out  by  the  weather  :  there  was  no  depth  in  the  caverns,  no 
boldness  in  the  hollows  of  the  soft  crumbling  ochre-tinted 
rock.  A  few  prickly-leaved  plants,  burdocks,  reeds,  and 
water-plants  at  its  base  were  sufficient  signs  of  a  north  aspect 
and  poor  soil.  Evidently  the  two  ranges,  though  parallel,  and 
as  it  were  blended  at  the  time  of  the  great  cataclysm  which 
changed  the  surface  of  the  globe,  were  composed  of  entirely 
different  materials — an  inexplicable  freak  of  nature,  or  the 
result  of  some  unknown  cause  which  waits  for  genius  to  dis- 
cover it.  In  this  place  the  contrast  between  them  was  most 
strikingly  apparent. 

Veronique  saw  in  front  of  her  a  vast  dry  plateau.  There 
was  no  sign  of  plant-life  anywhere  ;  the  chalky  soil  explained 
the  infiltration  of  the  water,  only  a  few  stagnant  pools 
remained  here  and  there  where  the  surface  was  incrusted.  To 
the  right  stretched  the  mountains  of  the  Correze,  and  to  the 


FARRABESCHE    LED    THE    WAY,    AND     VERONIQUE     FOLLOWED. 


MADAME   GRASL1N  AT  MONTAgNAC.  11$ 

left  the  eye  was  arrested  by  the  huge  mass  of  the  Living  Rock, 
the  tall  forest  trees  that  clothed  its  sides,  and  two  hundred 
acres  of  grass  below  the  forest,  in  strong  contrast  with  the 
ghastly  solitude  about  them. 

"  My  son  and  I  made  the  ditch  that  you  see  down  yonder," 
said  Farrabesche ;  "  you  can  see  it  by  the  line  of  tall  grass  ;  it 
will  be  connected  shortly  with  the  ditch  that  marks  the  edge 
of  your  forest.  Your  property  is  bounded  on  this  side  by  a 
desert,  for  the  first  village  lies  a  league  away." 

Veronique  galloped  into  the  hideous  plain,  and  her  keeper 
followed.  She  cleared  the  ditch  and  rode  at  full  speed  across 
the  dreary  waste,  seeming  to  take  a  kind  of  wild  delight  in  the 
vast  picture  of  desolation  before  her.  Farrabesche  was  right. 
No  skill,  no  human  power  could  turn  that  soil  to  account,  the 
ground  rang  hollow  beneath  the  horse's  hoofs.  This  was  a 
result  of  the  porous  nature  of  the  tufa,  but  there  were  cracks 
and  fissures  no  less  through  which  the  flood-water  sank  out  of 
sight,  doubtless  to  feed  some  far-off  springs. 

"And  yet  there  are  souls  like  this  !  "  Veronique  exclaimed 
within  herself  as  she  reined  in  her  horse,  after  a  quarter  of  an 
hour's  gallop. 

She  mused  a  while  with  the  desert  all  about  her  ;  there  was 
no  living  creature,  no  animal,  no  insect ;  birds  never  crossed 
the  plateau.  In  the  plain  of  Montegnac  there  were  at  any  rate 
the  flints,  a  little  sandy  or  clayey  soil,  and  crumbled  rock  to 
make  a  thin  crust  of  earth  a  few  inches  deep  as  a  begin- 
ning for  cultivation  ;  but  here  the  ungrateful  tufa,  which 
had  ceased  to  be  earth,  and  had  not  become  stone,  wearied 
the  eyes  so  cruelly  that  they  were  absolutely  forced  to  turn 
for  relief  to  the  illimitable  ether  of  space.  Veronique 
looked  along  the  boundary  of  her  forests  and  at  the  meadow 
which  her  husband  had  added  to  the  estate,  then  she  went 
slowly  back  towards  the  mouth  of  the  Gabou.  She  came 
suddenly  upon  Farrabesche,  and  found  him  looking  into  a 
hole,  which  might  have  suggested  that  some  one  of  a  specu- 


17«  nm  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

lative  turn  had  been  probing  this  unlikely  spot,  imagining  that 
nature  had  hidden  some  treasure  there. 

M  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Veronique,  noticing  the  deep  sadness 
of  the  expression  on  the  manly  face. 

"  Madame,  I  owe  my  life  to  this  trench  here,  or,  more 
properly,  I  owe  to  it  a  space  for  repentance  and  time  to  re- 
deem my  faults  in  the  eyes  of  men " 

The  effect  of  this  explanation  of  life  was  to  nail  Mme. 
Graslin  to  the  spot.     She  reined  in  her  horse. 

"  I  used  to  hide  here,  madame.  The  ground  is  so  full  of 
echoes,  that  if  I  laid  my  ear  to  the  earth  I  could  catch  the 
sound  of  the  horses  of  the  gendarmerie  or  the  tramp  of  sol- 
diers (an  unmistakable  sound  that  !)  more  than  a  league  away. 
Then  I  used  to  escape  by  way  of  the  Gabou.  I  had  a  horse 
ready  in  a  place  there,  and  I  always  put  five  or  six  leagues 
between  myself  and  them  that  were  after  me.  Catherine  used 
to  bring  me  food  of  a  night.  If  she  did  not  find  any  sign 
of  me,  I  always  found  bread  and  wine  left  in  a  hole  covered 
over  by  a  stone." 

These  recollections  of  his  wild  vagrant  life,  possibly  un- 
wholesome recollections  for  Farrabesche,  stirred  Veronique's 
most  indulgent  pity,  but  she  rode  rapidly  on  towards  the 
Gabou,  followed  by  the  keeper.  While  she  scanned  the  gap, 
looking  down  the  long  valley,  so  fertile  on  one  side,  so  forlorn 
on  the  other,  and  saw,  more  than  a  league  away,  the  hillside 
ridges,  tier  on  tier,  at  the  back  of  Montegnac,  Farrabesche 
said,  "There  will  be  famous  waterfalls  here  in  a  few  days." 

"And  by  the  same  day  next  year,  not  a  drop  of  water  will 
ever  pass  that  way  again.  I  am  on  my  own  property  on 
either  side,  so  I  shall  build  a  wall  solid  enough  and  high 
enough  to  keep  the  water  in.  Instead  of  a  valley  which  is 
doing  nothing,  I  shall  have  a  lake,  twenty,  thirty,  forty,  or 
fifty  feet  deep,  and  about  a  league  across — a  vast  reservoir  for 
the  irrigation  channels  that  shall  fertilize  the  whole  plain  of 
Montegnac." 


MADAME  GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  177 

"M.  le  Cure  was  right,  madame,  when  he  told  us,  as 
we  were  finishing  your  road,  that  we  were  working  for 
our  mother;  may  God  give  his  blessing  to  such  an  enter- 
prise." 

"Say  nothing  about  it,  Farrabesche, "  said  Mme.  Graslin; 
"it  is  M.  Bonnet's  idea." 

Veronique  returned  to  Farrabesche' s  cottage,  found  Mau- 
rice, and  went  back  at  once  to  the  chateau.  Her  mother  and 
Aline  were  surprised  at  the  change  in  her  face ;  the  hope  of 
doing  good  to  the  country  had  given  it  a  look  of  something 
like  happiness.  Mme.  Graslin  wrote  to  M.  Grosset&e ;  she 
wanted  him  to  ask  M.  de  Granville  for  complete  liberty  for 
the  poor  convict,  giving  particulars  as  to  his  good  conduct, 
which  was  further  vouched  for  by  the  mayor's  certificate  and 
a  letter  from  M.  Bonnet.  She  also  sent  other  particulars  con- 
cerning Catherine  Curieux,  and  entreated  Grossetete  to  interest 
the  public  prosecutor  in  her  kindly  project,  and  to  cause  a 
letter  to  be  written  to  the  prefecture  of  police  in  Paris  with  a 
view  to  discovering  the  girl.  The  mere  fact  that  Catherine 
had  remitted  sums  of  money  to  the  convict  in  prison  should 
be  a  sufficient  clue  by  which  to  trace  her.  Veronique  had  set 
her  heart  on  knowing  the  reason  why  Catherine  had  failed  to 
come  back  to  her  child  and  to  Farrabesche.  Then  she  told 
her  old  friend  of  her  discoveries  in  the  torrent  bed  of  the 
Gabou,  and  laid  stress  on  the  necessity  of  finding  the  clever 
man  for  whom  she  had  already  asked  him. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday.  For  the  first  time  since  Vero- 
nique took  up  her  abode  in  Montegnac,  she  felt  able  to  go  to 
church  for  mass.  She  went  and  took  possession  of  her  pew 
in  the  Lady  Chapel.  Looking  round  her,  she  saw  how  bare 
the  poverty-stricken  church  was,  and  determined  to  set  by  a 
certain  sum  every  year  for  repairs  and  the  decoration  of  the 
altars.  She  heard  the  words  of  the  priest,  tender,  gracious, 
and  divine;  for  the  sermon,  couched  in  such  simple  language 
that  all  present  could  understand  it,  was  in  truth  sublime. 
12 


178  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

The  sublime  comes  from  the  heart ;  it  is  not  to  be  found  by- 
effort  of  the  intellect ;  and  religion  is  an  inexhaustible  source 
of  sublime  thoughts  with  no  false  glitter  of  brilliancy,  for  the 
Catholicism  which  penetrates  and  changes  hearts  is  wholly  of 
the  heart.  M.  Bonnet  found  in  the  epistle  a  text  for  his 
sermon,  to  the  effect  that  soon  or  late  God  fulfills  his  prom- 
ises, watches  over  his  own,  and  encourages  the  good.  He 
made  it  clear  that  great  things  would  be  the  result  of  the 
presence  of  a  rich  and  charitable  resident  in  the  parish,  by 
pointing  out  that  the  duties  of  the  poor  towards  the  beneficent 
rich  were  as  extensive  as  those  of  the  rich  towards  the  poor, 
and  that  the  relation  should  be  one  of  mutual  help. 

Farrabesche  had  spoken  to  some  of  those  who  were  glad  to 
see  him  (one  consequence  of  the  spirit  of  Christian  charity 
which  M.  Bonnet  had  infused  into  practical  action  in  his 
parish),  and  had  told  them  of  Mme.  Graslin's  kindness  to 
him.  All  the  commune  had  talked  this  over  in  the  square 
below  the  church,  where,  according  to  country  custom,  they 
gathered  together  before  mass.  Nothing  could  more  com- 
pletely have  won  the  good-will  of  these  folk,  who  are  so  readily 
touched  by  any  kindness  shown  to  them  ;  and  when  Veron- 
ique  came  out  of  church  she  found  almost  all  the  parish 
standing  in  a  double  row.  All  hats  went  off  respectfully  and 
in  deep  silence  as  she  passed.  This  welcome  touched  her, 
though  she  did  not  know  the  real  reason  of  it.  Among  the 
last  of  all  she  saw  Farrabesche,  and  spoke  to  him. 

"  You  are  a  good  sportsman  ;  do  not  forget  to  send  us 
some  game." 

A  few  days  after  this  Veronique  walked  with  the  cure  in 
that  part  of  the  forest  nearest  her  chateau  \  she  determined  to 
descend  the  ridges  which  she  had  seen  from  the  Living  Rock, 
ranged  tier  on  tier  on  the  other  side  of  the  hill.  With  the 
cure's  assistance  she  would  ascertain  the  exact  position  of  the 
higher  affluents  of  the  Gabon.  The  result  was  the  discovery 
by  the  cure  of  the  fact  that  the  streams  which  water  Upper 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  179 

Montegnac  really  rose  in  the  mountains  of  the  Correze. 
These  ranges  were  united  to  the  mountain  by  the  arid  rib  of 
hill  which  ran  parallel  to  the  chain  of  the  Living  Rock. 
The  cure  came  back  from  that  walk  with  boyish  glee  ;  he 
saw,  with  the  naivete  of  a  poet,  the  prosperity  of  the  village 
that  he  loved.  And  what  is  a  poet  but  a  man  who  realizes  his 
dreams  before  the  time  ?  M.  Bonnet  reaped  his  harvests  as  he 
looked  down  from  the  terrace  at  the  barren  plain. 

Farrabesche  and  his  son  came  up  to  the  chateau  next  morn- 
ing loaded  with  game.  The  keeper  had  brought  a  cup  for 
Francis  Graslin  ;  it  was  nothing  less  than  a  masterpiece — a 
battle-scene  carved  on  a  cocoanut  shell.  Mme.  Graslin 
happened  to  be  walking' on  the  terrace,  on  the  side  that  over- 
looked "  Tascherons."  She  sat  down  on  a  garden  seat,  and 
looked  long  at  that  fairy's  work.  Tears  came  into  her  eyes 
from  time  to  time. 

"  You  must  have  been  very  unhappy,"  she  said,  addressing 
Farrabesche  after  a  silence. 

"What  could  I  do,  madame  ?  "  he  answered.  "I  was 
there  without  the  hope  of  escape,  which  makes  life  bearable 
to  almost  all  the  convicts " 

"  It  is  an  appalling  life  !  "  she  said,  and  her  look  and  com- 
passionate tones  invited  Farrabesche  to  speak. 

In  Mme.  Graslin's  convulsive  tremor  and  evident  emotion 
Farrabesche  saw  nothing  but  the  overwrought  interest  excited 
by  pitying  curiosity.  Just  at  that  moment  Mme.  Sauviat 
appeared  in  one  of  the  garden  walks,  and  seemed  about  to 
join  them,  but  Veronique  drew  out  her  handkerchief  and 
motioned  her  away.  "Let  me  be,  mother,"  she  cried,  in 
sharper  tones  than  she  had  ever  before  used  to  the  old 
Auvergnate. 

"  For  five  years  I  wore  a  chain  riveted  here  to  a  heavy  iron 
ring,  madame,"  Farrabesche  said,  pointing  to  his  leg.  "I 
was  fastened  to  another  man.  I  have  had  to  live  like  that 
with  three  convicts  first  and  last.     I  used  to  lie  on  a  wooden 


180  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

camp  bedstead,  and  I  had  to  work  uncommonly  hard  to  get  a 
thin  mattress,  called  a  serpentin.  There  were  eight  hundred 
men  in  each  ward.  Each  of  the  beds  (Jolards,  they  called 
them)  held  twenty-four  men,  all  chained  together  two  and 
two,  and  nights  and  mornings  they  passed  a  long  chain  called 
the  '  bilboes  string,'  in  and  out  of  the  chains  that  bound  each 
couple  together,  and  made  it  fast  to  the  tolard,  so  that  all  of 
us  were  fastened  down  by  the  feet.  Even  after  a  couple  of 
years  of  it,  I  could  not  get  used  to  the  clank  of  those  chains; 
every  moment  they  said,  '  You  are  in  a  convicts'  prison  ! ' 
If  you  dropped  off  to  sleep  for  a  minute,  some  rogue  or  other 
would  begin  to  wrangle  or  turn  himself  round,  and  put  you  in 
mind  of  your  plight.  You  had  to  serve  an  apprenticeship  to 
learn  how  to  sleep.  I  could  not  sleep  at  all,  in  fact,  unless  I 
was  utterly  exhausted  with  a  heavy  day's  work. 

"  After  I  managed  to  sleep,  I  had,  at  any  rate,  the  night 
when  I  could  forget  things.  Forgetfulness — that  is  something, 
madame  !  Once  a  man  is  there,  he  must  learn  to  satisfy  his 
needs  after  a  manner  fixed  by  the  most  pitiless  rules.  You 
can  judge,  madame,  what  sort  of  effect  this  life  was  like  to 
have  on  me,  a  young  fellow  who  had  always  lived  in  the 
woods,  like  the  wild  goats  and  the  birds  !  Ah  !  if  I  had  not 
eaten  my  bread  cooped  up  in  the  four  walls  of  a  prison  for  six 
months  beforehand,  I  should  have  thrown  myself  into  the  sea 
at  the  sight  of  my  mates,  for  all  the  beautiful  things  M. 
Bonnet  said,  and  (I  may  say  it)  he  has  been  the  father  of  my 
soul.  I  did  pretty  well  in  the  open  air ;  but  when  once  I  was 
shut  up  in  the  ward  to  sleep  or  eat  (for  we  ate  our  food  there 
out  of  troughs,  three  couples  to  each  trough),  it  took  all  the 
life  out  of  me  ;  the  dreadful  faces  and  the  language  of  the 
others  always  sickened  me.  Luckily,  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
summer,  and  half-past  seven  in  winter,  out  we  went  in  spite 
of  heat  or  cold  or  wind  or  rain,  in  the  'jail  gang' — that 
means  to  work.  So  we  were  out  of  doors  most  of  our  time, 
and  the  open  air  seems  very  good  to  you  when  you  come  out 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTE GNAC.  181 

of  a  place  where  eight  hundred  convicts  herd  together.  The 
air,  you  must  always  remember,  is  sea-air  !  You  enjoy  the 
breeze,  the  sun  is  like  a  friend,  and  you  watch  the  clouds  pass 
over,  and  look  for  hopeful  signs  of  a  beautiful  day.  For  my 
own  part,  I  took  an  interest  in  my  work." 

Farrabesche  stopped,  for  two  great  tears  rolled  down  Ver- 
onique's  cheeks. 

"  Oh  !  madame,  these  are  only  the  roses  of  that  exist- 
ence!" he  cried,  taking  the  expression  on  Mme.  Graslin's 
face  for  pity  of  his  lot.  "  These  are  the  dreadful  precautions 
the  government  takes  to  make  sure  of  us,  the  inquisition  kept 
up  by  the  warders,  the  inspection  of  fetters  morning  and 
evening,  the  coarse  food,  the  hideous  clothes  that  humiliate 
you  at  every  moment,  the  constrained  position  while  you 
sleep,  the  frightful  sound  of  four  hundred  double  chains 
clanking  in  an  echoing  ward,  the  prospect  of  being  mowed 
down  with  grapeshot  if  half-a-dozen  scoundrels  take  it  into 
their  heads  to  rebel — all  these  horrible  things  are  nothing, 
they  are  the  roses  of  that  life,  as  I  said  before.  Any  respect- 
able man  unlucky  enough  to  be  sent  there  must  die  of  disgust 
before  very  long.  You  have  to  live  day  and  night  with 
another  convict ;  you  have  to  endure  the  company  of  five 
more  at  every  meal,  and  twenty-three  at  night ;  you  have  to 
listen  to  their  talk. 

"  The  convicts  have  secret  laws  among  themselves,  madame  ; 
if  you  make  an  outlaw  of  yourself,  they  will  murder  you;  if 
you  submit,  you  become  a  murderer..  You  have  your  choice — 
you  must  be  either  victim  or  executioner.  After  all,  if  you 
die  at  a  blow,  that  would  put  an  end  to  you  and  your 
troubles ;  but  they  are  too  cunning  in  wickedness,  it  is 
impossible  to  hold  out  against  their  hatred  :  any  one  whom 
they  dislike  is  completely  at  their  mercy,  they  can  make  every 
moment  of  his  life  one  constant  torture  worse  than  death. 
Any  man  who  repents  and  tries  to  behave  well  is  the  common 
enemy,  and  more  particularly  they  suspect  him  of  tale-telling. 

T 


182  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

They  will  take  a  man's  life  on  a  mere  suspicion  of  tale-telling. 
Every  ward  has  its  tribunal,  where  they  try  crimes  against  the 
convicts'  laws.  It  is  an  offense  not  to  conform  to  their 
customs,  and  a  man  may  be  punished  for  that.  For  instance, 
everybody  is  bound  to  help  the  escape  of  a  convict ;  every 
convict  has  his  chance  of  escape  in  turn,  when  the  whole 
prison  is  bound  to  give  him  help  and  protection.  It  is  a 
crime  to  reveal  anything  done  by  a  convict  to  further  his 
escape.  I  will  not  speak  of  the  horrible  moral  tone  of  the 
prison  ;  strictly  speaking,  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  sub- 
ject. The  prison  authorities  chain-  men  of  opposite  disposi- 
tions together,  so  as  to  neutralize  any  attempt  at  escape  or  re- 
bellion ;  and  always  put  those  who  either  could  not  endure 
each  other,  or  were  suspicious  of  each  other,  on  the  same 
chain." 

"What  did  you  do?"  asked  Mme.  Graslin. 

"Oh!  it  was  like  this,  I  had  luck,"  said  Farrabesche ; 
"  the  lot  never  fell  to  me  to  kill  a  doomed  man ;  I  never 
voted  the  death  of  anybody,  no  matter  whom;  I  was  never 
punished,  no  one  took  a  dislike  to  me,  and  I  lived  comfort- 
ably with  the  three  mates  they  gave  me  one  after  another — all 
three  of  them  feared  and  liked  me.  But  then  I  was  well 
known  in  the  prison  before  I  got  there,  madame.  A 
chauffeur !  for  I  was  supposed  to  be  one  of  those  brigands. 
I  have  seen  them  do  it,"  Farrabesche  went  on  in  a  low  voice, 
after  a  pause,  "  but  I  never  would  help  to  torture  folk,  nor 
take  any  of  the  stolen  money.  I  was  a  '  refractory  conscript,' 
that  was  all.  I  used  to  help  the  rest,  I  was  scout  for  them,  I 
fought,  I  was  forlorn  sentinel,  rearguard,  what  you  will,  but  I 
never  shed  blood  except  in  self-defense.  Oh  !  I  told  M. 
Bonnet  and  my  lawyer  everything,  and  the  judges  knew  quite 
well  that  I  was  not  a  murderer.  But,  all  the  same,  I  am  a  great 
criminal ;  the  things  that  I  have  done  are  all  against  the  law. 

"Two  of  my  old  comrades  had  told  them  about  me  before 
I  came.     I  was  a  man  of  whom  the  greatest  things  might  be 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  183 

expected,  they  said.  In  the  convicts'  prison,  you  see,  madame, 
there  is  nothing  like  a  character  of  that  kind  ;  it  is  worth  even 
more  than  money.  A  murder  is  a  passport  in  this  republic  of 
wretchedness;  they  leave  you  in  peace.  I  did  nothing  to 
destroy  their  opinion  of  me.  I  looked  gloomy  and  resigned  ; 
it  was  possible  to  be  misled  by  my  face,  and  they  were  misled. 
My  sullen  manner  and  my  silence  were  taken  for  signs  of 
ferocity.  Every  one  there,  convicts  and  warders,  young  and 
old,  respected  me.  I  was  president  of  my  ward.  I  was  never 
tormented  at  night,  nor  suspected  of  tale-telling.  I  lived 
honestly  according  to  ,their  rules ;  I  never  refused  to  do  any 
one  a  good  turn  ;  I  never  showed  a  sign  of  disgust ;  in  short, 
I  'howled  with  the  wolves,'  to  all  appearance,  and  in  my 
secret  soul  I  prayed  to  God.  My  last  mate  was  a  soldier,  a 
lad  of  two-and-twenty,  who  had  stolen  something,  and  then 
deserted  in  consequence  ;  I  had  him  for  four  years.  We  were 
friends,  and  wherever  I  may  be  I  can  reckon  on  him  when  he 
comes  out.  The  poor  wretch,  Guepin  they  called  him,  was 
not  a  rascal, 'he  was  only  a  harebrained  boy;  his  ten  years 
will  sober  him  down.  Oh  !  if  the  rest  had  known  that  it  was 
religion  that  reconciled  me  to  my  fate ;  that  when  my  time 
was  up  I  meant  to  live  in  some  corner  without  letting  them 
know  where  I  was,  to  forget  those  fearful  creatures,  and  never 
to  be  in  the  way  of  meeting  one  of  them  again,  they  would 
very  likely  have  driven  me  mad." 

'"  But,  then,  suppose  that  some  unhappy,  sensitive  boy  had 
been  carried  away  by  passion,  and — pardoned  so  far  as  the 
.death  penalty  is  concerned ?  " 

"  Madame,  a  murderer  is  never  fully  pardoned.  They  be- 
gin by  commuting  the  sentence  for  twenty  years  of  penal  ser- 
vitude. But  for  a  decent  young  fellow  it  is  a  thing  to  shudder 
at  !  It  is  impossible  to  tell  you  about  the  life  in  store  for  him  ; 
it  would  be  a  hundred  times  better  for  him  that  he  should 
die  !     Yes,  for  such  a  death  on  the  scaffold  is  good  fortune.*' 

"  I  did  not  dare  to  think  it,"  said  Mme.  Graslin. 


184  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Veronique  had  grown  white  as  wax.  She  leaned  her  fore 
head  against  the  balustrade  to  hide  her  face  for  several  mo- 
ments. Farrabesche  did  not  know  whether  he  ought  to  go 
or  stay.  Then  Mine.  Graslin  rose  to  her  feet,  and  with  an 
almost  queenly  look  she  said,  to  Farrabesche' s  great  astonish- 
ment, "  Thank  you,  my  friend  !  "  in  tones  that  went  to  his 
heart.  Then  after  a  pause — "Where  did  you  draw  courage 
to  live  and  suffer  as  you  did  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Ah,  madame,  M.  Bonnet  had  set  a  treasure  in  my  soul  ! 
That  is  why  I  love  him  more  than  I  have  ever  loved  any  one 
else  in  this  world." 

"More  than  Catherine?"  asked  Mme.  Graslin,  with  a 
certain  bitterness  in  her  smile. 

"Ah,  madame,  almost  as  much." 

"How  did  he  do  it?" 

"  Madame,  the  things  that  he  said  and  the  tones  of  his 
voice  subdued  me.  It  was  Catherine  who  showed  him  the 
way  to  the  hiding-place  in  the  chalk-land  which  I  showed  you 
the  other  day.  He  came  to  me  quite  alone.  He  was  the  new 
cure  of  Montegnac,  he  told  me  ;  I  was  his  parishioner,  I  was 
dear  to  him,  he  knew  that  I  had  only  strayed  from  the  path, 
that  I  was  not  yet  lost  ;  he  did  not  mean  to  betray  me,  but  to 
save  me;  in  fact,  he  said  things  that  thrill  you  to  the  very 
depths  of  your  nature.  And  you  see,  madame,  he  can  make 
you  do  right  with  all  the  force  that  other  people  take  to  make 
you  do  wrong.  He  told  me,  poor  dear  man,  that  Catherine 
was  a  mother ;  I  was  about  to  give  over  two  creatures  to  shame 
and  neglect.  'Very  well,'  said  I,  'then  they  will  be  just  as 
I  am  ;  I  have  no  future  before  me.'  He  answered  that  I  had 
two  futures  before  me,  and  both  of  them  bad — one  in  this 
world,  the  other  in  the  next — unless  I  desisted  and  reformed. 
Here  below  I  was  bound  to  die  on  the  scaffold.  If  I  were 
caught,  my  defense  would  break  down  in  a  court  of  law. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  I  took  advantage  of  the  mildness  of  the 
new   government   towards    l  refractory   conscripts '    of  many 


MADAME    GRASL1N  AT  MONTAGNAC.  185 

years'  standing,  and  gave  myself  up,  he  would  strain  every 
nerve  to  save  my  life.  He  would  find  me  a  clever  advocate 
who  would  pull  me  through  with  ten  years'  penal  servitude. 
After  that  M.  Bonnet  talked  to  me  of  another  life.  Catherine 
cried  like  a  Magdalen  at  that.  There,  madame,"  said  Farra- 
besche,  holding  out  his  right  hand,  "she  laid  her  face  against 
this,  and  I  felt  it  quite  wet  with  her  tears.  She  prayed  me 
to  live  !  M.  le  Cure  promised  to  contrive  a  quiet  and  happy 
lot  for  me  and  my  child,  even  in  this  district,  and  undertook 
that  no  one  should  cast  up  the  past  to  me.  In  short,  he  lec- 
tured me  as  if  I  had  been  a  little  boy.  After  three  of  those 
nightly  visits  I  was  as  pliant  as  a  glove.  Do  you  care  to 
know  why,  madame?" 

Farrabesche  and  Mme.  Graslin  looked  at  each  other,  and 
neither  of  them  to  their  secret  souls  explained  the  real  motive 
of  their  mutual  curiosity. 

"  Very  well,"  the  poor  ticket-of-leave  man  continued,  "  the 
first  time  when  he  had  gone  away,  and  Catherine  went,  too, 
to  show  him  the  way  back,  and  I  was  left  alone,  I  felt  a  kind 
of  freshness  and  calm  happiness  such  as  I  had  not  known 
since  I  was  a  child.  It  was  something  like  the  happiness  I 
had  felt  with  poor  Catherine.  The  love  of  this  dear  man, 
who  had  come  to  seek  me  out,  the  interest  that  he  took  in  me, 
in  my  future,  in  my  soul — it  all  worked  upon  me  and  changed 
me.  It  was  as  if  a  light  arose  in  me.  So  long  as  he  was  with 
me  and  talked,  I  held  out.  How  could  I  help  it?  He  was  a 
priest,  and  we  bandits  do  not  eat  their  bread.  But  when  the 
sound  of  his  footsteps  and  Catherine's  died  away — oh  !  I  was, 
as  he  said  two  days  later,  '  enlightened  by  grace.' 

"  From  that  time  forwards  God  gave  me  strength  to 
endure  everything — the  jail,  the  sentence,  the  putting  on  of 
the  irons,  the  journey,  the  life  in  the  convicts'  prison.  I 
reckoned  upon  M.  Bonnet's  promise  as  upon  the  truth  of  the 
Gospel ;  I  looked  on  my  sufferings  as  a  payment  of  arrears. 
Whenever  things  grew  unbearable,  I  used  to  see,  at  the  end 


186  THE    COUNTRY  PARSON. 

of  the  ten  years,  this  house  in  the  woods,  and  my  little  Ben- 
jamin and  Catherine  there.  Good  M.  Bonnet,  he  kept  his 
promise ;  but  some  one  else  failed  me.  Catherine  was  not  at 
the  prison-door  when  I  came  out,  nor  yet  at  the  trysting-place 
on  the  common  lands.  She  must  have  died  of  grief.  That  is 
why  I  am  always  sad.  Now,  thanks  to  you,  madame,  I  shall 
have  work  to  do  that  needs  doing ;  I  shall  put  myself  into  it 
body  and  soul,  so  will  my  boy  for  whom  I  live " 

"  You  have  shown  me  how  it  was  that  M.  le  Cure  could 
bring  about  the  changes  in  his  parish " 

"  Oh  !  nothing  can  resist  him,"  said  Farrabesche. 

"No,  no.  I  know  that,"  Veronique  answered  briefly,  and 
she  very  kindly  dismissed  the  grateful  Farrabesche  with  a  sign 
of  farewell. 

Farrabesche  went.  Most  of  that  day  Veronique  spent  in 
pacing  to  and  fro  along  the  terrace,  in  spite  of  the  drizzling 
rain  that  fell  till  evening  came  on.  She  was  gloomy  and  sad. 
When  Veronique's  brows  were  thus  contracted,  neither  her 
mother  nor  Aline  dared  to  break  in  on  her  mood ;  she  did  not 
see  her  mother  talking  in  the  dusk  with  M.  Bonnet,  who, 
seeing  that  she  must  be  roused  from  this  appalling  dejection, 
sent  the  child  to  find  her.  Little  Francis  went  up  to  his 
mother  and  took  her  hand,  and  Veronique  suffered  herself  to 
be  led  away.  At  the  sight  of  M.  Bonnet  she  started  with 
something  almost  like  dismay.  The  cure  led  the  way  back  to 
the  terrace. 

"  Well,  madame,"  he  said,  "what  can  you  have  been  talk- 
ing about  with  Farrabesche  ?  " 

Veronique  did  not  wish  to  lie  nor  to  answer  the  question  ; 
she  replied  to  it  by  another — 

"  Was  he  your  first  victory  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  M.  Bonnet.  "  If  I  could  win  him,  I  felt  sure 
of  Mont6gnac ;  and  so  it  proved." 

Veronique  pressed  M.  Bonnet's  hand. 

"  From  to-day  I  am  your  penitent,  M.  le  Cure,"  she  said, 


MADAME  GRASLIN  AT  MONTiGNAC  187 

with  tears  in  her  voice;  "  to-morrow  I  will  make  you  a 
general  confession." 

The  last  words  plainly  spoke  of  a  great  inward  struggle  and 
a  hardly-won  victory  over  herself.  The  cure  led  the  way  back 
to  the  chateau  without  a  word,  and  stayed  with  her  till  dinner, 
talking  over  the  vast  improvements  to  be  made  in  Montegnac. 

"Agriculture  is  a  question  of  time,"  he  said.  "  The  little 
that  I  know  about  it  has  made  me  to  understand  how  much 
may  be  done  by  a  well-spent  winter.  Here  are  the  rains 
beginning,  you  see;  before  long  the  mountains  will  be 
covered  with  snow,  and  your  operations  will  be  impossible ; 
so  hurry  M.  Grossetete." 

M.  Bonnet  exerted  himself  to  talk,  and  drew  Mme.  Graslin 
into  the  conversation  ;  gradually  her  thoughts  were  forced  to 
take  another  turn,  and  by  the  time  he  left  her  she  had  almost 
recovered  from  the  day's  excitement.  But  even  so,  Mme. 
Sauviat  saw  that  her  daughter  was  so  terribly  agitated  that  she 
spent  the  night  with  her. 

Two  days  later  a  messenger  sent  by  M.  Grossetete  arrived 
with  the  following  letters  for  Mme.  Graslin  : 

Grossetete  to  Mme.  Graslin. 

"  My  dear  Child: — Horses  are  not  easily  to  be  found,  but 
I  hope  that  you  are  satisfied  with  the  three  which  I  sent  you. 
If  you  need  draught-horses  or  plough-horses,  they  must  be 
looked  for  elsewhere.  It  is  better  in  any  case  to  use  oxen  for 
ploughing  and  as  draught  animals.  In  all  districts  where 
they  use  horses  on  the  land,  they  lose  their  capital  as  soon  as 
the  animal  is  past  work,  while  an  ox,  instead  of  being  a  loss, 
yields  a  profit  to  the  farmer. 

.  "  I  approve  of  your  enterprise  in  every  respect,  my  child ; 
you  will  find  in  it  an  outlet  for  the  devouring  mental  energy 
which  was  turned  against  yourself  and  wearing  you  out.  But 
when  you  asked  me  to  find  you,  over  and  above  the  horses,  a 


188  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

man  able  to  second  you,  and  more  particularly  to  enter  into 
your  views,  you  ask  me  for  one  of  those  rare  birds  that  we 
rear  it  is  true  in  the  provinces,  but  which  we  in  no  case  keep 
among  us.  The  training  of  the  noble  animal  is  too  lengthy 
and  too  risky  a  speculation  for  us  to  undertake,  and,  besides, 
we  are  afraid  of  these  very  clever  folk — 'eccentrics,'  we  call 
them. 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact,  too,  the  men  who  are  classed  in  the 
scientific  category  in  which  you  are  fain  to  find  a  co-operator 
are,  as  rule,  so  prudent  and  so  well  provided  for,  that  I  hardly 
liked  to  write  to  tell  you  how  impossible  it  would  be  to  come 
by  such  a  prize.  You  ask  me  for  a  poet,  or,  if  you  prefer 
it,  a  madman  ;  but  all  our  madmen  betake  themselves  to  Paris. 
I  did  speak  to  one  or  two  young  fellows  engaged  on  the  land 
survey  and  assessments,  contractors  for  embankments,  or  fore- 
men employed  on  canal  cuttings ;  but  none  of  them  thought 
it  worth  their  while  to  entertain  your  proposals.  Chance  all  at 
once  threw  in  my  way  the  very  man  you  want,  a  young  man 
whom  I  thought  to  help;  for  you  will  see  by  his  letter  that 
one  ought  not  to  set  about  doing  a  kindness  in  a  happy-go- 
lucky  fashion,  and,  indeed,  an  act  of  kindness  requires  more 
thinking  about  than  anything  else  on  this  earth.  You  can 
never  tell  whether  what  seemed  to  you  to  be  right  at  the  time 
may  not  do  harm  by  and  by.  By  helping  others  we  shape  our 
own  destinies;  I  see  that  now " 

As  Mine.  Graslin  read  those  words,  the  letter  dropped  from 
her  hands.     For  some  moments  she  sat  deep  in  thought. 

"Oh,  God,"  she  cried,  "when  wilt  Thou  cease  to  smite 
me  by  every  man's  hand  ?  " 

Then  she  picked  up  the  letters  and  read  on — 

"  Gerard  seems  to  me  to  have  plenty  of  enthusiasm  and  a 
cool  head  ;  the  very  man  for  you !  Paris  is  in  a  ferment  just 
now  with  this  leaven  of  new  doctrine,  and  I  shall  be  delighted 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  189 

if  the  young  fellow  keeps  out  of  the  snares  spread  by  ambi- 
tious spirits,  who  work  upon  the  instincts  of  the  generous  youth 
of  France.  The  rather  torpid  existence  of  the  provinces  is 
not  altogether  what  I  like  for  him,  but  neither  do  I  like  the 
idea  of  the  excitement  of  the  life  in  Paris,  and  the  enthusiasm 
for  renovating,  which  urges  youngsters  into  the  new  ways. 
You,  and  you  only,  know  my  opinions ;  to  me  it  seei.«s  that 
the  world  of  ideas  revolves  on  its  axis  much  as  the  material 
world  does.  Here  is  this  poor  protege  of  mine  wanting  im- 
possibilities. No  power  on  earth  could  stand  before  ambitions 
so  violent,  imperious,  and  absolute.  I  have  a  liking  myself 
for  a  jog  trot ;  I  like  to  go  slowly  in  politics,  and  have  but  very 
little  taste  for  the  social  topsy-turvydom  which  all  these  lofty 
spirits  are  minded  to  inflict  upon  us.  To  you  I  confide  the 
principles  of  an  old  and  trusted  supporter  of  the  Monarchy, 
for  you  are  discreet.  I  hold  my  tongue  here  among  these 
good  folk,  who  believe  more  and  more  in  progress  the  farther 
they  get  into  a  mess ;  but  for  all  that  it  hurts  me  to  see  the 
irreparable  damage  done  already  to  our  dear  country. 

"  So  I  wrote  and  told  the  young  man  that  a  task  worthy  of 
him  was  waiting  for  him  here.  He  is  coming  to  see  you  ;  for 
though  his  letter  (which  I  enclose)  will  give  you  a  very  fair 
idea  of  him,  you  would  like  to  see  him  as  well,  would  you  not  ? 
You  women  can  tell  so  much  from  the  look  of  people ;  and, 
besides,  you  ought  not  to  have  any  one,  however  insignificant, 
in  your  service  unless  you  like  him.  If  he  is  not  the  man 
you  want,  you  can  decline  his  services ;  but  if  he  suits  you, 
dear  child,  cure  him  of  his  flimsily-disguised  ambitions,  induce 
him  to  adopt  the  happy  and  peaceful  life  of  the  fields,  a  life 
in  which  beneficence  is  perpetual,  where  all  the  qualities  of 
a  great  and  strong  nature  are  continually  brought  into  play, 
where  the  products  of  nature  are  a  daily  source  of  new  wonder, 
and  a  man  finds  worthy  occupation  in  making  a  real  advance 
and  practical  improvements.  I  do  not  in  any  way  overlook 
the  fact  that  great  deeds  come  of  great  ideas — great  theories; 


190  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON, 

but  as  ideas  of  that  kind  are  seldom  met  with,  I  think  that, 
for  the  most  part,  practical  attainments  are  worth  more  than 
ideas.  A  man  who  brings  a  bit  of  land  into  cultivation  or  a 
tree  or  fruit  to  perfection,  who  makes  grass  grow  where  grass 
would  not  grow  before,  ranks  a  good  deal  higher  than  the 
seeker  after  formulas  for  humanity.  In  what  has  Newton's 
science  changed  the  lot  of  the  worker  in  the  fields?  Ah  !  my 
dear,  I  loved  you  before,  but  to-day,  appreciating  to  the  full 
the  task  which  you  have  set  before  you,  I  love  you  far  more. 
You  are  not  forgotten  here  in  Limoges,  and  every  one  admires 
your  great  resolution  of  improving  Montegnac.  Give  us  our 
little  due,  in  that  we  have  the  wit  to  admire  nobility  when  we 
see  it,  and  do  not  forget  that  the  first  of  your  admirers  is  also 
your  earliest  friend. 

"F.  Grossetete." 

Gerard  to  Grossetete. 

"  I  come  to  you,  monsieur,  with  sad  confidences,  but  you 
have  been  like  a  father  to  me,  when  you  might  have  been 
simply  a  patron.  So  to  you  alone,  who  have  made  me  any- 
thing that  I  am,  can  I  make  them.  I  have  fallen  a  victim  to 
a  cruel  disease,  a  disease,  moreover,  not  of  the  body;  I  am 
conscious  that  I  am  completely  unfitted  by  my  thoughts,  feel- 
ings, and  opinions,  and  by  the  whole  bent  of  my  mind,  to  do 
what  is  expected  of  me  by  the  government  and  by  society. 
Perhaps  this  will  seem  to  you  to  be  a  piece  of  ingratitude,  but 
it  is  simply  and  solely  an  indictment  that  I  address  to  you. 

"  When  I  was  twelve  years  old  you  saw  the  signs  of  a  certain 
aptitude  for  the  exact  sciences,  and  a  precocious  ambition  to 
succeed,  in  a  workingman's  son,  and  it  was  through  you,  my 
generous  godfather,  that  I  took  my  flight  towards  higher 
spheres  ;  but  for  you  I  should  be  following  out  my  original 
destiny,  I  should  be  a  carpenter  like  my  poor  father,  who  did 
not  live  to  rejoice  in  my  success.  And  most  surely,  monsieur, 
you  did  me  a  kindness ;  there  is  no  day  on  which  I  do  not 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  191 

bless  you ;  and  so,  perhaps,  it  is  I  who  am  in  the  wrong.  But 
whether  right  or  wrong,  I  am  unhappy  ;  and  does  not  the  fact 
that  I  pour  out  my  complaints  to  you  set  you  very  high  ?  Is 
it  not  as  if  I  made  of  you  a  supreme  judge,  like  God?  In 
any  case,  I  trust  to  your  indulgence. 

"  I  studied  the  exact  sciences  so  hard  between  the  ages  of 
sixteen  and  eighteen  that  I  made  myself  ill,  as  you  know. 
My  whole  future  depended  on  my  admission  to  the  Ecole 
Polytechnique.  The  work  I  did  at  that  time  was  a  dispropor- 
tionate training  for  the  intellect;  I  all  but  killed  myself;  I 
studied  day  and  night ;  I  exerted  myself  to  do  more  than  I 
was  perhaps  fit  for.  I  was  determined  to  pass  my  examina- 
tions so  well  that  I  should  be  sure  not  only  of  admittance  into 
the  Ecole,  but  of  a  free  education  there,  for  I  wanted  to  spare 
you  the  expense,  and  I  succeeded  ! 

"  It  makes  me  shudder  now  to  think  of  that  appalling  con- 
scription of  brains  yearly  made  over  to  the  government  by 
family  ambition  ;  a  conscription  which  demands  such  severe 
study  at  a  time  when  a  lad  is  almost  a  man,  and  growing 
fast  in  every  way,  cannot  but  do  incalculable  mischief; 
many  precious  faculties  which  later  would  have  developed 
and  grown  strong  and  powerful  are  extinguished  by  the  light 
of  the  student's  lamp.  Nature's  laws  are  inexorable  ;  they 
are  not  to  be  thrust  aside  by  the  schemes  nor  at  the  pleasure 
of  society ;  and  the  laws  of  the  physical  world,  the  laws 
which  govern  the  nature  without,  hold  good  no  less  of 
human  nature — every  abuse  must  be  paid  for.  If  you  must 
have  fruit  out  of  season,  you  have  it  from  a  forcing  house 
either  at  the  expense  of  the  tree  or  of  the  quality  of  the 
fruit.  La  Quintinie  killed  the  orange  trees  that  Louis  XIV. 
might  have  a  bouquet  of  orange  blossoms  every  morning 
throughout  the  year.  Any  heavy  demand  made  on  a  still- 
growing  intellect  is  a  draft  on  its  future. 

"The  pressing  and  special  need  of  our  age  is  the  spirit  of 
the  lawgiver.     Europe  has  so  far  seen  no  lawgiver  since  Jesus 


192  THE    COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Christ ;  and  Christ,  who  gave  us  no  vestige  of  a  political 
code,  left  His  work  incomplete.  For  example,  before  tech- 
nical schools  were  established,  and  the  present  means  of  filling 
them  with  scholars  was  adopted,  did  they  call  in  one  of  the 
great  thinkers  who  hold  in  their  heads  the  immensity  of  the 
sum  of  the  relations  of  the  institution  to  human  brain-power ; 
who  can  balance  the  advantages  and  disadvantages,  and  study 
in  the  past  the  laws  of  the  future?  Was  any  inquiry  made 
into  the  after-lives  of  men  who,  for  their  misfortune,  knew 
the  circle  of  the  sciences  at  too  early  an  age  ?  Was  any  esti- 
mate of  their  rarity  attempted?  Was  their  fate  ascertained? 
Was  it  discovered  how  they  contrived  to  endure  the  continual 
strain  of  thought?  How  many  of  them  died  like  Pascal, 
prematurely,  worn  out  by  science?  Some,  again,  lived  to 
old  age  ;  when  did  these  begin  their  studies  ?  Was  it  known 
then,  is  it  known  now  as  I  write,  what  conformation  of  the 
brain  is  best  fitted  to  stand  the  strain  and  to  cope  prematurely 
with  knowledge  ?  Is  it  so  much  as  suspected  that  this  is  before 
all  things  a  physiological  question? 

"  Well,  I  think  myself  that  the  general  rule  is  that  the 
vegetative  period  of  adolescence  should  be  prolonged.  There 
are  exceptions  ;  there  are  some  so  constituted  that  they  are 
capable  of  this  effort  in  youth,  but  the  result  is  the  shortening 
of  life  in  most  cases.  Clearly  the  man  of  genius  who  can 
stand  the  precocious  exercise  of  his  faculties  is  bound  to  be  an 
exception  among  exceptions.  If  medical  testimony  and  social 
data  bear  me  out,  our  way  of  recruiting  for  the  technical 
schools  in  France  works  as  much  havoc  among  the  best  human 
specimens  of  each  generation  as  La  Quintinie's  process  among 
the  orange  trees. 

"But  to  continue  (for  I  will  append  my  doubts  to  each 
series  of  facts),  I  began  my  work  anew  at  the  Ecole,  and  with 
more  enthusiasm  than  ever.  I  meant  to  leave  it  as  success- 
fully as  I  had  entered  it.  Between' the  ages  of  nineteen  and 
one-and-twenty  I  worked  with  all  my  might,  and  developed 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  193 

my  faculties  by  their  constant  exercise.  Those  two  years  set 
the  crown  on  the  three  which  came  before  them,  when  I  was 
only  preparing  to  do  great  things.  And  then,  what  pride  did 
I  not  feel  when  I  had  won  the  privilege  of  choosing  the  career 
most  to  my  mind  ?  I  might  be  a  military  or  marine  engineer, 
might  go  on  the  staff  of  the  artillery,  into  the  mines  depart- 
ment, or  the  roads  and  bridges.  I  took  your  advice,  and 
became  a  civil  engineer. 

"  Yet  where  I  triumphed,  how  many  fell  out  of  the  ranks ! 
You  know  that  from  year  to  year  the  government  raises  the 
standard  of  the  Ecole.  The  work  grows  harder  and  more 
trying  from  time  to  time.  The  course  of  preparatory  study 
through  which  I  went  was  nothing  compared  with  the  work  at 
fever-heat  in  the  Ecole,  to  the  end  that  every  physical  science — 
mathematics,  astronomy,  and  chemistry,  and  the  terminologies 
of  each — may  be  packed  into  the  heads  of  so  many  young  men 
between  the  ages  of  nineteen  and  twenty-one.  The  govern- 
ment here  in  France,  which  in  so  many  ways  seems  to  aim  at 
taking  the  place  of  the  paternal  authority,  has  in  this  respect 
no  bowels — no  father's  pity  for  its  children  ;  it  makes  its 
experiments  in  anima  vili.  The  ugly  statistics  of  the  mischief 
it  has  wrought  have  never  been  asked  for ;  no  one  has  troubled 
to  inquire  how  many  cases  of  brain  fever  there  have  been 
during  the  last  thirty-six  years ;  how  many  explosions  of  de- 
spair among  those  young  lads ;  no  one  takes  account  of  the 
moral  destruction  which  decimates  the  victims.  I  lay  stress 
on  this  painful  aspect  of  the  problem  because  it  occurs  by  the 
way  and  before  the  final  result ;  for  a  few  weaklings  the 
result  comes  soon  instead  of  late.  You  know,  besides,  that 
these  victims,  whose  minds  work  slowly,  or  who,  it  may  be, 
are  temporarily  stupefied  with  overwork,  are  allowed  to  stay 
for  three  years  instead  of  two  at  the  Ecole,  but  the  way  these 
are  regarded  there  has  no  very  favorable  influence  on  their 
capacity.  In  fact,  it  may  chance  that  young  men,  who  at  a 
later  day  will  show  that  they  have  something  in  them,  may 
13 


194  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

leave  the  Ecole  without  an  appointment  at  all,  because  at  the 
final  examination  they  do  not  exhibit  the  amount  of  knowledge 
required  of  them.  These  are  'plucked,'  as  they  say,  and 
Napoleon  used  to  make  sub-lieutenants  of  them.  In  these 
days  the  '  plucked  '  candidate  represents  a  vast  loss  of  capital 
invested  by  families,  and  a  loss  of  time  for  the  lad  himself. 

"  But,  after  all,  I  myself  succeeded  !  At  the  age  of  one- 
and-twenty  I  had  gone  over  all  the  ground  discovered  in 
mathematics  by  men  of  genius,  and  I  was  impatient  to  dis- 
tinguish myself  by  going  farther.  The  desire  is  so  natural 
that  almost  every  student  when  he  leaves  the  Ecole  fixes  his 
eyes  on  the  sun  called  glory  in  an  invisible  heaven.  The 
first  thought  in  all  our  minds  was  to  be  a  Newton,  a  Laplace, 
or  a  Vauban.  Such  are  the  efforts  which  France  requires  of 
young  men  who  leave  the  famous  Ecole  Polytechnique ! 

"  And  now  let  us  see  what  becomes  of  the  men  sorted  and 
sifted  with  such  care  out  of  a  whole  generation.  At  one-and- 
twenty  we  dream  dreams,  a  whole  lifetime  lies  before  us,  we 
expect  wonders.  I  entered  the  School  of  Roads  and  Bridges, 
and  became  a  civil  engineer.  I  studied  construction,  and 
with  what  enthusiasm  !  You  must  remember  it.  In  1826, 
when  I  left  the  school,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  I  was  still 
only  a  civil  engineer  on  my  promotion,  with  a  government 
grant  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  francs  a  month.  The  worst-paid 
book-keeper  in  Paris  will  earn  as  much  by  the  time  he  is  eigh- 
teen, and  with  four  hours'  work  in  the  day.  By  unhoped-for 
good  luck,  it  may  be  because  my  studies  had  brought  me  dis- 
tinction, I  received  an  appointment  as  a  surveyor  in  1828.  I 
was  twenty-six  years  old.  They  sent  me,  you  know  where, 
into  a  sub-prefecture  with  a  salary  of  two  thousand  five  hun- 
dred francs.  The  money  matters  nothing.  My  lot  is  at  any 
rate  more  brilliant  than  a  carpenter's  son  has  a  right  to  expect ; 
but  what  journeyman  grocer  put  into  a  shop  at  the  age  of  six- 
teen will  not  be  fairly  on  the  way  to  an  independence  by  the 
time  he  is  six-and-twenty  ? 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  196 

"  Then  I  found  out  the  end  to  which  these  terrible  displays 
of  intelligence  were  directed,  and  why  the  gigantic  efforts, 
required  of  us  by  the  government,  were  made.  The  govern- 
ment sent  me  to  count  paving-stones  and  measure  the  heaps 
of  road-material  by  the  waysides.  I  must  repair,  keep  in  order, 
and  occasionally  construct  runnels  and  culverts,  maintain  the 
ways,  clean  out,  and  occasionally  open  ditches.  At  the  office 
I  must  answer  all  questions  relating  to  the  alignment  or  the 
planting  and  felling  of  trees.  These  are,  in  fact,  the  principal 
and  often  the  only  occupations  of  an  ordinary  surveyor. 
Perhaps  from  time  to  time  there  is  some  bit  of  leveling  to  be 
done,  and  that  we  are  obliged  to  do  ourselves,  though  any  of 
the  foremen  with  his  practical  experience  could  do  the  work 
a  good  deal  better  than  we  can  with  all  our  science. 

"  There  are  nearly  four  hundred  of  us  altogether — ordinary 
surveyors  and  assistants — and  as  there  are  only  some  hundred- 
odd  engineers-in-chief,  all  the  subordinates  cannot  hope  for 
promotion  ;  there  is  practically  no  higher  rank  to  absorb  the 
engineers-in-chief,  for  twelve  or  fifteen  inspectors-general  or 
divisionaries  scarcely  count,  and  their  posts  are  almost  as 
much  of  sinecures  in  our  corps  as  colonelcies  in  the  artillery 
when  the  battery  is  united  with  it.  An  ordinary  civil  engi- 
neer, like  a  captain  of  artillery,  knows  all  that  is  known  about 
his  work  ;  he  ought  not  to  need  any  one  to  look  after  him 
except  an  administrative  head  to  connect  the  eighty-six  engi- 
neers with  each  other  and  the  government,  for  a  single 
engineer  with  two  assistants  is  quite  enough  for  a  department. 
A  hierarchy  in  such  a  body  as  ours  works  in  this  way.  Ener- 
getic minds  are  subordinated  to  old  effete  intelligences,  who 
think  themselves  bound  to  distort  and  alter  (they  think  for 
the  better)  the  drafts  submitted  to  them  ;  perhaps  they  do  this 
simply  to  give  some  reason  for  their  existence ;  and  this,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  the  only  influence  exerted  on  public  works 
in  France  by  the  General  Council  of  Roads  and  Bridges. 

"  Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  between  the  ages  of  thirty 


196  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

and  forty  I  become  an  engineer  of  the  first-class,  and  am  an 
engineer-in-chief  by  the  time  I  am  fifty.  Alas  !  I  foresee 
my  future  ;  it  lies  before  my  eyes.  My  engineer-in-chief  is  a 
man  of  sixty.  He  left  the  famous  Ecole  with  distinction,  as 
I  did  ;  he  has  grown  gray  in  two  departments  over  such  work 
as  I  am  doing;  he  has  become  the  most  commonplace  man 
imaginable,  has  fallen  from  the  heights  of  attainment  he  once 
reached ;  nay,  more  than  that,  he  is  not  even  abreast  of  sci- 
ence. Science  has  made  progress,  and  he  has  remained 
stationary;  worse  still,  has  forgotten  what  he  once  knew! 
The  man  who  came  to  the  front  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  with 
every  sign  of  real  ability  has  nothing  of  it  left  now  but  the 
appearance.  At  the  very  outset  of  his  career  his  education 
was  especially  directed  to  mathematics  and  the  exact  sciences, 
and  he  took  no  interest  in  anything  that  was  not  '  in  his 
line.'  You  would  scarcely  believe  it,  but  the  man  knows 
absolutely  nothing  of  other  branches  of  learning.  Mathe- 
matics have  dried  up  his  heart  and  brain.  I  cannot  tell  any 
one  but  you  what  a  nullity  he  really  is,  screened  by  the  name 
of  the  Ecole  Polytechnique.  The  label  is  impressive ;  and 
people,  being  prejudiced  in  his  favor,  do  not  dare  to  throw 
any  doubt  on  his  ability.  But  to  you  I  may  say  that  his  be- 
fogged intellects  have  cost  the  department  in  one  affair  a 
million  francs,  where  two  hundred  thousand  should  have 
been  ample.  I  was  for  protesting,  for  opening  the  prefect's 
eyes,  and  whatnot ;  but  a  friend  of  mine,  another  surveyor, 
told  me  about  a  man  in  the  corps  who  became  a  kind  of  black 
sheep  in  the  eyes  of  the  administration  by  doing  something  of 
this  sort.  '  Would  you  yourself  be  very  much  pleased,  when 
you  are  engineer-in-chief,  to  have  your  mistakes  shown  up  by 
a  subordinate?'  asked  he.  'Your  engineer-in-chief  will  be 
a  divisionary  inspector  before  very  long.  As  soon  as  one  of  us 
makes  some  egregious  blunder,  the  administration  (which,  of 
course,  must  never  be  in  the  wrong)  withdraws  the  perpetrator 
from  active  service  and   makes  him  an  inspector.'     That  is 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  197 

how  the  reward  due  to  a  capable  man  becomes  a  sort  of  pre- 
mium on  stupidity. 

"  All  France  saw  one  disaster  in  the  heart  of  Paris,  the 
miserable  collapse  of  the  first  suspension  bridge  which  an 
engineer  (a  member  of  the  Academie  des  Sciences,  moreover) 
endeavored  to  construct,  a  collapse  caused  by  blunders  which 
would  not  have  been  made  by  the  constructor  of  the  Canal 
de  Briare  in  the  time  of  Henri  IV.,  nor  by  the  monk  who 
built  the  Pont  Royal.  Him,  too,  the  administration  consoled 
by  a  summons  to  the  Board  of  the  General  Council. 

"Are  the  technical  schools  really  manufactories  of  incom- 
petence ?  The  problem  requires  prolonged  observation.  If 
there  is  anything  in  what  I  say,  a  reform  is  needed,  at  any 
rate  in  the  way  in  which  they  are  carried  on,  for  I  do  not 
venture  to  question  the  usefulness  of  the  Ecoles.  Still,  look- 
ing back  over  the  past,  does  it  appear  that  France  has  ever 
lacked  men  of  great  ability  at  need,  or  the  talent  she  tries  to 
hatch  as  required  in  these  days  by  Monge's  method  ?  What 
school  turned  out  Vauban  save  the  great  school  called  '  voca- 
tion ?  '  Who  was  Riquet's  master  ?  When  genius  has  raised 
itself  above  the  social  level,  urged  upwards  by  a  vocation,  it 
is  almost  always  fully  equipped ;  and  in  that  case  your  man  is 
no  'specialist,'  but  has  something  universal  in  his  gift.  I  do 
not  believe  that  any  engineer  who  ever  left  the  Ecole  could 
build  one  of  the  miracles  of  architecture  which  Leonardo  da 
Vinci  reared  ;  Leonardo  at  once  mechanician,  architect,  and 
painter,  one  of  the  inventors  of  hydraulic  science,  the  inde- 
fatigable constructor  of  canals.  They  are  so  accustomed 
while  yet  in  their  teens  to  the  bald  simplicity  of  geometry, 
that  by  the  time  they  leave  the  Ecole  they  have  quite  lost  all 
feeling  for  grace  or  ornament ;  a  column  to  their  eyes  is  a 
useless  waste  of  material ;  they  return  to  the  point  where  art 
begins — on  utility  they  take  their  stand,  and  stay  there. 

"But  this  is  as  nothing  compared  with  the  disease  which  is 
consuming  me.     I  feel  that  a  most  terrible  change  is  being 


198  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

wrought  in  me ;  I  feel  that  my  energy  and  faculties,  after  the 
exorbitant  strain  put  upon  them,  are  dwindling  and  growing 
feeble.  The  influence  of  my  humdrum  life  is  creeping  over 
me.  After  such  efforts  as  mine,  I  feel  that  I  am  destined  to 
do  great  things,  and  I  am  confronted  by  the  most  trivial  task 
work,  such  as  verifying  yards  of  road-material,  inspecting  high- 
ways, checking  inventories  of  stores.  I  have  not  enough  to 
do  to  fill  two  hours  in  the  day. 

"  I  watch  my  colleagues  marry  and  fall  out  of  touch  with 
modern  thought.  Is  my  ambition  really  immoderate?  I 
should  like  to  serve  my  country.  My  country  required  me  to 
give  proof  of  no  ordinary  powers,  and  bade  me  become  an 
encyclopedia  of  the  sciences— and  here  I  am,  folding  my 
arms  in  an  obscure  corner  of  a  province.  I  am  not  allowed 
to  leave  the  place  where  I  am  penned  up,  to  exercise  my  wits 
by  trying  new  and  useful  experiments  elsewhere.  A  vague 
indefinable  grudge  is  the  certain  reward  awaiting  any  one  of 
us  who  follows  his  own  inspirations,  and  does  more  than  the 
department  requires  of  him.  The  most  that  such  a  man 
ought  to  hope  for  is  that  his  overweening  presumption  may  be 
passed  over,  his  talent  neglected,  while  his  project  receives 
decent  burial  in  the  pigeon-holes  at  headquarters.  What  will 
Vicat's  reward  be,  I  wonder  ?  (Between  ourselves,  Vicat  is  the 
only  man  among  us  who  has  made  any  real  advance  in  the 
science  of  construction.) 

"  The  General  Council  of  Roads  and  Bridges  is  partly 
made  up  of  men  worn  out  by  long  and  sometimes  honorable 
service,  but  whose  remaining  brain-power  only  exerts  itself 
negatively;  these  gentlemen  erase  anything  that  they  cannot 
understand  at  their  age,  and  act  as  a  sort  of  extinguisher  to  be 
put  when  required  on  audacious  innovations.  The  Council 
might  have  been  created  for  the  express  purpose  of  paralyzing 
the  arm  of  the  generous  younger  generation,  which  only  asks 
for  leave  to  work,  and  would  fain  serve  France. 

"  Monstrous   things   happen   in   Paris.      The   future   of  a 


MADAME    GKASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  199 

province  hangs  on  the  signature  of  these  bureaucrats.  I  have 
not  time  to  tell  you  all  about  the  intrigues  which  balk  the 
best  schemes ;  for  them  the  best  schemes  are,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  those  which  open  up  the  best  prospects  of  money-making 
to  the  greed  of  speculators  and  companies,  which  knock  most 
abuses  on  the  head,  for  abuses  are  always  stronger  than  the 
spirit  of  improvement  in  France.  In  five  years'  time  my  old 
self-will  has  ceased  to  rule.  I  shall  see  my  ambitions  die  out 
in  me,  and  my  noble  desire  to  use  the  faculties  which  my 
country  bade  me  display,  and  then  left  to  rust  in  my  obscure 
corner. 

"  Taking  the  most  favorable  view  possible,  my  outlook 
seems  to  me  to  be  very  poor.  I  took  advantage  of  leave  of 
absence  to  come  to  Paris.  I  want  to  change  my  career,  to 
find  scope  for  my  energies,  knowledge,  and  activity.  I  shall 
send  in  my  resignation,  and  go  to  some  country  where  men 
with  my  special  training  are  needed,  where  great  things  may 
be  done.  If  none  of  all  this  is  possible,  I  will  throw  in  my 
lot  with  some  of  these  new  doctrines  which  seem  as  if  they 
must  make  some  great  change  in  the  present  order  of  things, 
by  directing  the  workers  to  better  purpose.  For  what  are  we 
but  laborers  without  work,  tools  lying  idle  in  the  warehouse  ? 
We  are  organized  as  if  it  was  a  question  of  shaking  the  globe, 
and  we  are  required  to  do — nothing. 

"  I  am  conscious  that  there  is  something  great  in  me  which 
is  pining  away  and  will  perish ;  I  tell  you  this  with  mathe- 
matical explicitness.  But  I  should  like  to  have  your  advice 
before  I  make  a  change  in  my  condition.  I  look  on  myself 
as  your  son,  and  should  never  take  any  important  step  without 
consulting  you,  for  your  experience  is  as  great  as  your  good- 
ness. I  know,  of  course,  that  when  the  government  has  ob- 
tained its  specially  trained  men,  it  can  no  more  set  its  en- 
gineers to  construct  public  monuments  than  it  can  declare  wai 
to  give  the  army  an  opportunity  of  winning  great  battles  and 
of  finding  out  which  are  its  great  captains.     But,  then,  as  thf 


200  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

man  has  never  failed  to  appear  when  circumstances  called  for 
him ;  as,  at  the  moment  when  there  is  much  money  to  be 
spent  and  great  things  to  be  done,  one  of  these  unique  men 
of  genius  springs  up  from  the  crowd  ;  and  as,  particularly  in 
matters  of  this  kind,  one  Vauban  is  enough  at  a  time,  nothing 
could  better  demonstrate  the  utter  uselessness  of  the  institu- 
tion. In  conclusion,  when  a  picked  man's  mental  energies 
have  been  stimulated  by  all  this  preparation,  how  can  the 
government  help  seeing  that  he  will  make  any  amount  of 
struggle  before  he  allows  himself  to  be  effaced?  Is  it  wise 
policy?  What  is  it  but  a  way  of  kindling  burning  ambition? 
Would  they  bid  all  those  perfervid  heads  learn  to  calculate 
anything  and  everything  but  the  probabilities  of  their  own 
futures  ? 

?■'  There  are,  no  doubt,  exceptions  among  some  six  hundred 
young  men,  some  firm  and  unbending  characters,  who  decline 
to  be  withdrawn  in  this  way  from  circulation.  I  know  some 
of  them  ;  but  if  the  story  of  their  struggles  with  men  and 
things  could  be  told  in  full ;  if  it  were  known  how  that,  while 
full  of  useful  projects  and  ideas  which  would  put  life  and 
wealth  into  stagnant  country  districts,  they  meet  with  hin- 
drances put  in  their  way  by  the  very  men  who  (so  the  govern- 
ment led  them  to  believe)  would  give  them  help  and  counte- 
nance, the  strong  man,  the  man  of  talent,  the  man  whose 
nature  is  a  miracle,  would  be  thought  a  hundred  times  more 
unfortunate  and  more  to  be  pitied  than  the  man  whose  de- 
generate nature  tamely  resigns  himself  to  the  atrophy  of  his 
faculties. 

"  So  I  would  prefer  to  direct  some  private  commercial  or 
industrial  enterprise,  and  live  on  very  little,  while  trying  to 
find  a  solution  of  some  one  of  the  many  unsolved  problems 
of  industry  and  modern  life,  rather  than  remain  where  I  am. 
You  will  say  that  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  me  from  employ- 
ing my  powers  as  it  is  ;  that  in  the  silence  of  this  humdrum 
life  I  might  set  myself  to  find  the  solution  of  one  of  those 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTE GNAC.  201 

problems  which  presses  on  humanity.  Ah  !  monsieur,  do  you 
not  understand  what  the  influence  of  the  provinces  is;  the 
enervating  effect  of  a  life  just  sufficiently  busy  to  fill  the  days 
with  all  but  futile  work,  but  yet  not  full  enough  to  give  occu- 
pation to  the  powers  so  fully  developed  by  such  a  training  as 
ours?  You  will  not  think,  my  dear  guardian,  that  I  am  eaten  up 
with  the  ambition  of  money-making  or  consumed  with  a  mad 
desire  for  fame.  I  have  not  learned  to  calculate  to  so  little 
purpose  that  I  cannot  measure  the  emptiness  of  fame.  The 
inevitable  activity  of  life  has  led  me  not  to  think  of  mar- 
riage ;  and  looking  at  my  present  prospects,  I  have  not  so 
good  an  opinion  of  existence  as  to  give  such  a  sorry  present 
to  another  self.  Although  I  look  upon  money  as  one  of  the 
most  powerful  instruments  that  can  be  put  in  the  hands  of  a 
civilized  man,  money  is,  after  all,  only  a  means.  My  sole 
pleasure  lies  in  the  assurance  that  I  am  serving  my  country. 
To  have  employment  for  my  faculties  in  a  congenial  atmo- 
sphere would  be  the  height  of  enjoyment  for  me.  Perhaps 
among  your  acquaintance  in  your  part  of  the  world,  in  the 
circle  on  which  you  shine,  you  might  hear  of  something  which 
requires  some  of  the  aptitude  which  you  know  that  I  possess ; 
I  will  wait  six  months  for  an  answer  from  you. 

"  These  things  which  I  am  writing  to  you,  dear  patron  and 
friend,  others  are  thinking.  I  have  seen  a  good  many  of  my 
colleagues  or  old  scholars  at  the  Ecole  caught,  as  I  was,  in 
the  snare  of  a  special  training  ;  ordnance  surveyors,  captain- 
professors,  captains  in  the  artillery,  doomed  (as  they  see)  to 
be  captains  for  the  rest  of  their  days,  bitterly  regretting  that 
they  did  not  go  into  the  regular  army.  Again  and  again,  in 
fact,  we  have  admitted  to  each  other  in  confidence  that  we  are 
victims  of  a  long  mystification,  which  we  only  discover  when 
it  is  too  late  to  draw  back,  when  the  mill-horse  is  used  to  the 
round  and  the  sick  man  accustomed  to  his  disease. 

"After  looking  carefully  into  these  melancholy  results,  I 
have  asked  myself  the  following  questions,  which  I  send  to 


202  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

you,  as  a  man  of  sense,  whose  mature  wisdom  will  see  all  that 
lies  in  them,  knowing  that  they  are  fruit  of  thought  refined 
by  the  fires  of  painful  experience. 

"What  end  has  the  government  in  view?  To  obtain  the 
best  abilities  ?  If  so,  the  government  sets  to  work  to  obtain 
a  directly  opposite  result  :  if  it  had  hated  talent,  it  could  not 
have  had  better  success  in  producing  respectable  mediocri- 
ties. Or  does  it  intend  to  open  out  a  career  to  selected 
intelligence?  It  could  not  well  have  given  it  a  more  mediocre 
position.  There  is  not  a  man  sent  out  by  the  Ecoles  who  does 
not  regret  between  fifty  and  sixty  that"  he  fell  into  the  snare 
concealed  by  the  offers  of  the  government.  Does  it  mean 
to  secure  men  of  genius?  What  really  great  man  have  the 
Ecoles  turned  out  since  1790?  Would  Cachin,  the  genius 
to  whom  we  owe  Cherbourg,  have  existed  but  for  Napoleon  ? 
It  was  imperial  despotism  which  singled  him  out ;  the  Con- 
stitutional Administration  would  have  stifled  him.  Does  the 
Academie  des  Sciences  number  many  members  who  have  passed 
through  the  technical  schools?  Two  or  three,  it  may  be  ;  but 
the  man  of  genius  invariably  appears  from  outside.  In  the 
particular  sciences  which  are  studied  at  these  schools,  genius 
obeys  no  laws  but  its  own  ;  it  only  develops  under  circum- 
stances over  which  we  have  no  control  ;  and  neither  the 
government  nor  anthropology  knows  the  conditions.  Riquet, 
Perronet,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Cachin,  Palladio,  Brunelleschi, 
Michel  Angelo,  Bramante,  Vauban,  and  Vicat  all  derived  their 
genius  from  unobserved  causes  and  preparation  to  which  we 
give  the  name  of  chance — the  great  word  for  fools  to  fall  back 
upon.  Schools  or  no  schools,  these  sublime  workers  have 
never  been  lacking  in  every  age.  And  now,  does  the  govern- 
ment, by  means  of  organizing,  obtain  works  of  public  utility 
better  done  or  at  a  cheaper  rate  ? 

"In  the  first  place,  private  enterprise  does  very  well  with- 
out professional  engineers  ;  and,  in  the  second,  state-directed 
works  are  the  most  expensive  of  all ;  and  besides  the  actual 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  203 

outlay,  there  is  the  cost  of  the  maintenance  of  the  great  staff 
of  the  Roads  and  Bridges  Department.  Finally,  in  other 
countries  where  they  have  no  institutions  of  this  kind,  in  Ger- 
many, England,  and  Italy,  such  public  works  are  carried  out 
quite  as  well,  and  cost  less  than  ours  in  France.  Each  of  the 
three  countries  is  well  known  for  new  and  useful  inventions 
of  this  kind.  I  know  it  is  the  fashion  to  speak  of  our  Ecoles 
as  if  they  were  the  envy  of  Europe ;  but  Europe  has  been 
watching  us  these  fifteen  years,  and  nowhere  will  you  find  the 
like  instituted  elsewhere.  The  English,  those  shrewd  men  of 
business,  have  better  schools  among  their  working  classes, 
where  they  train  practical  men,  who  become  conspicuous  at 
once  when  they  rise  from  practical  work  to  theory.  Stephen- 
son and  Macadam  were  not  pupils  in  these  famous  institutions 
of  ours. 

"  But  where  is  the  use?  When  young  and  clever  engineers, 
men  of  spirit  and  enthusiasm,  have  solved  at  the  outset  of 
their  career  the  problem  of  the  maintenance  of  the  roads 
of  France,  which  requires  hundreds  of  millions  of  francs 
every  twenty-five  years,  which  roads  are  in  a  deplorable  state, 
it  is  in  vain  for  them  to  publish  learned  treatises  and  memo- 
rials ;  everything  is  swallowed  down  by  the  board  of  direction, 
everything  goes  in  and  nothing  comes  out  of  a  central  bureau 
in  Paris,  where  the  old  men  are  jealous  of  their  juniors,  and 
high-places  are  refuges  for  superannuated  blunderers. 

"This  is  how,  with  a  body  of  educated  men  distributed  all 
over  France,  a  body  which  is  part  of  the  machinery  of  admin- 
istrative government,  and  to  whom  the  country  looks  for 
direction  and  enlightenment  on  the  great  questions  within 
their  department,  it  will  probably  happen  that  we  in  France 
shall  still  be  talking  about  railways  when  other  countries  have 
finished  theirs.  Now,  if  ever  France  ought  to  demonstrate 
the  excellence  of  her  technical  schools  as  an  institution, 
should  it  not  be  in  a  magnificent  public  work  of  this  special 
kind,  destined  to  change  the  face  of  many  countries,  and  to 


204  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

double  the  length  of  human  life  by  modifying  the  laws  of 
time  and  space  ?  Belgium,  the  United  States,  Germany,  and 
England,  without  an  Ecole  Polytechnique,  will  have  a  network 
of  railways  while  our  engineers  are  still  tracing  out  the  plans, 
and  hideous  jobbery  lurking  behind  the  projects  will  check 
their  execution.  You  cannot  lay  a  stone  in  France  until  half 
a  score  of  scribblers  in  Paris  have  drawn  up  a  driveling 
report  that  nobody  wants.  The  government,  therefore,  gets 
no  good  of  its  technical  schools  ;  and  as  for  the  individual 
— he  is  tied  down  to  a  mediocre  career,  his  life  is  a  cruel 
delusion.  Certain  it  is  that  with  the  "abilities  which  he  dis- 
played between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  twenty-five  he  would 
have  gained  more  reputation  and  riches  if  he  had  been  left  to 
shift  for  himself  than  he  will  acquire  in  the  career  to  which 
government  condemns  him.  As  a  merchant,  a  scientific  man, 
or  a  soldier,  this  picked  man  would  have  a  wide  field  before 
him,  his  precious  faculties  and  enthusiasm  would  not  have 
been  prematurely  and  stupidly  exhausted.  Then  where  is  the 
advance  ?  Assuredly  the  individual  and  the  state  both  lose  by 
the  present  system.  Does  not  an  experiment  carried  on  for 
half  a  century  show  that  changes  are  needed  in  the  way  the 
institution  is  worked  ?  What  priesthood  qualifies  a  man  for 
the  task  of  selecting  from  a  whole  generation  those  who  shall 
hereafter  be  the  learned  class  of  France?  What  studies 
should  not  these  high-priests  of  destiny  have  made  ?  A 
knowledge  of  mathematics  is,  perhaps,  scarcely  so  necessary 
as  physiological  knowledge  ;  and  does  it  not  seem  to  you  that 
something  of  that  clairvoyance  which  is  the  wizardry  of  great 
men  might  be  required  too  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  exam- 
iners are  old  professors,  men  worthy  of  all  honor,  grown  old 
in  harness ;  their  duty  it  is  to  discover  the  best  memories,  and. 
there  is  an  end  of  it ;  they  can  do  nothing  but  what  is 
required  of  them.  Truly,  their  functions  should  be  the  most 
important  ones  in  the  state,  and  call  for  extraordinary  men  to 
fulfill  them. 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  205 

"  Do  not  think,  my  dear  friend  and  patron,  that  my  censure 
is  confined  to  the  Ecole  through  which  I  myself  passed  ;  it 
applies  not  only  to  the  institution  itself,  but  also  and  still 
more  t'o  the  methods  by  which  lads  are  admitted ;  that  is  to 
say,  to  the  system  of  competitive  examination.  Competition 
is  a  modern  invention,  and  essentially  bad.  It  is  bad  not 
only  in  learning,  but  in  every  possible  connection,  in  the  arts, 
in  every  election  made  of  men,  projects,  or  things.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  our  famous  schools  should  not  have  turned 
out  better  men  than  any  other  chance  assemblage  of  lads;  but 
it  is  still  more  disgraceful  that  among  the  prizemen  at  the 
institute  there  has  been  no  great  painter,  musician,  architect, 
or  sculptor ;  even  as  for  the  past  twenty  years  the  general 
elections  have  swept  no  single  great  statesman  to  the  front  out 
of  all  the  shoals  of  mediocrities.  My  remarks  have  a  bearing 
upon  an  error  which  is  vitiating  both  politics  and  education  in 
France.  This  cruel  error  is  based  on  the  following  principle, 
which  organizers  have  overlooked  : 

* ' '  Nothing  in  experience  or  in  the  nature  of  things  can  war- 
rani  the  assumption  that  the  intellectual  qualities  of  early  man- 
hood will  be  those  of  maturity. ' 

"  At  the  present  time  I  have  been  brought  in  contact  with 
several  distinguished  men  who  are  studying  the  many  moral 
maladies  which  prey  upon  France.  They  recognize,  as  I  do, 
the  fact  that  secondary  education  forces  a  sort  of  temporary 
capacity  in  those  who  have  neither  present  work  nor  future 
prospects;  and  that  the  enlightenment  diffused  by  primary 
education  is  of  no  advantage  to  the  state,  because  it  is  bereft 
of  belief  and  sentiment. 

"  Our  whole  educational  system  calls  for  sweeping  reform, 
which  should  be  carried  out  under  the  direction  of  a  man  of 
profound  knowledge,  a  man  with  a  strong  will,  gifted  with 
that  legislative  faculty  which,  possibly,  is  found  in  Jean- 
Jacques  Rousseau  alone  of  all  moderns. 

"Then,  perhaps,  the  superfluous  specialists  might  find  em- 


206  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

ployment  .in  elementary  teaching  •  it  is  badly  needed  by  the 
mass  of  the  people.  We  have  not  enough  patient  and  devoted 
teachers  for  the  training  of  these  classes.  The  deplorable  preva- 
lence of  crimes  and  misdemeanors  points  to  a  weak  spot  in  our 
social  system — the  one-sided  education  which  tends  to  weaken 
the  fabric  of  society,  by  teaching  the  masses  to  think  suffi- 
ciently to  reject  the  religious  beliefs  necessary  for  their  govern- 
ment, yet  not  enough  to  raise  them  to  a  conception  of  the 
theory  of  obedience  and  duty,  which  is  the  last  word  of 
transcendental  philosophy.  It  is  impossible  to  put  a  whole 
nation  through  a  course  of  Kant ;  and  belief  and  use  and 
wont  are  more  wholesome  for  the  people  than  study  and  argu- 
ment. 

"If  I  had  to  begin  again  from  the  very  beginning,  I  dare 
say  I  might  enter  a  seminary  and  incline  to  the  life  of  a  simple 
country  parson  or  a  village  schoolmaster.  But  now  I  have 
gone  too  far  to  be  a  mere  elementary  teacher;  and,  besides,  a 
wider  field  of  action  is  open  to  me  than  the  schoolhouse  or 
the  parish.  I  cannot  go  the  whole  way  with  the  Saint-Si mon- 
;ans,  with  whom  I  am  tempted  to  throw  in  my  lot ;  but  with 
all  their  mistakes,  they  have  laid  a  finger  on  many  weak  points 
in  our  social  system,  the  results  of  our  legislation,  which  will 
be  palliated  rather  than  remedied — simply  putting  off  the  evil 
day  for  France.  Good-bye,  dear  sir;  in  spite  of  these  ob- 
servations of  mine,  rest  assured  of  my  respectful  and  faithful 
friendship,  a  friendship  which  can  only  grow  with  time.  • 

"Gregoire  Gerard." 

Acting  on  old  business  habit,  Grossetete  had  indorsed  the 
letter  with  the  rough  draft  of  a  reply,  and  written  beneath  it 
the  sacramental  word  "Answered." 

"My  dear  Gerard: — It  is  the  more  unnecessary  to  enter 
upon  any  discussion  of  the  observations  contained  in  your 
letter,  since  that  chance  (to  make  use  of  the  word  for  fools) 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  207 

enables  me  to  make  you  an  offer  which  will  practically  extricate 
you  from  a  position  in  which  you  find  yourself  so  ill  at  ease. 
Mme.  Graslin,  who  owns  the  forest  of  Montegnac,  and  a  good 
deal  of  barren  land  below  the  long  range  of  hills  on  which 
the  forest  lies,  has  a  notion  of  turning  her  vast  estates  to  some 
account,  of  exploiting  the  woods  and  bringing-  the  stony 
land  into  cultivation.  Small  pay  and  plenty  of  work !  A 
great  result  to  be  brought  about  by  insignificant  means,  a 
district  to  be  transformed  !  Abundance  made  to  spring  up  on 
the  barest  rock  !  Is  not  this  what  you  wished  to  do,  you 
who  would  fain  realize  a  poet's  dream?  From  the  sincere 
ring  of  your  letter,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  ask  you  to  come  to 
Limoges  to  see  me,  but  do  not  send  in  your  resignation,  my 
friend,  only  sever  your  connection  with  your  corps,  explain  to 
the  authorities  that  you  are  about  to  make  a  study  of  some  prob- 
lems that  lie  within  your  province,  but  outside  the  limits  of 
your  work  for  the  government.  In  that  way  you  will  lose 
none  of  your  privileges,  and  you  will  gain  time  in  which  to 
decide  whether  this  scheme  of  the  cure's  at  Montegnac,  which 
finds  favor  in  Mme.  Graslin's  eyes,  is  a  feasible  one.  If 
these  vast  changes  should  prove  to  be  practicable,  I  will  lay 
the  possible  advantages  before  you  by  word  of  mouth,  and 
not  by  letter.     Believe  me  to  be  always  sincerely  your  friend, 

"  Grossetete.  " 

For  all  reply  Mme.  Graslin  wrote  : 

"  Thank  you,  my  friend ;  I  am  waiting  to  see  your 
protege." 

She  showed  the  letter  to  M.  Bonnet,  with  the  remark, 
"  Here  is  one  more  wounded  creature  seeking  the  great 
hospital  !  " 

The  cure  read  the  letter  and  re-read  it,  took  two  or  three 
turns  upon  the  terrace,  and  handed  the  paper  back  to  Mme. 
Graslin. 


208  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"  It  comes  from  a  noble  nature,  the  man  has  something  in 
him,"  he  said.  "  He  writes  that  the  schools,  invented  by  the 
spirit  of  the  Revolution,  manufacture  inaptitude  ;  for  my  own 
part,  I  call  them  manufactories  of  unbelief;  for  if  M.  Gerard 
is  not  an  atheist,  he  is  a  Protestant " 

"  We  will  ask  him,"  she  said,  struck  with  the  cure's  answer. 

A  fortnight  later,  in  the  month  of  December,  M.  Gros- 
setfcte  came  to  Montegnac,  in  spite  of  the  cold,  to  introduce 
his  protege.  Veronique  and  M.  Bonnet  awaited  his  arrival 
with  impatience. 

"  One  must  love  you  very  much,  my  child,"  said  the  old 
man,  taking  both  of  Veronique's  hands,  and  kissing  them 
with  the  old-fashioned  elderly  gallantry  which  a  woman  never 
takes  amiss ;  "  yes,  one  must  love  you  very  much  indeed  to 
stir  out  of  Limoges  in  such  weather  as  this;  but  I  had  made  up 
my  mind  that  I  must  come  in  person  to  make  you  a  present  of 
M.  Gregoire  Gerard.  Here  he  is.  A  man  after  your  own 
heart,  M.  Bonnet,"  the  old  banker  added  with  an  affectionate 
greeting  to  the  cure. 

Gerard's  appearance  was  not  very  prepossessing.  He  was 
a  thick-set  man  of  middle  height ;  his  neck  was  lost  in  his 
shoulders,  to  use  the  common  expression  ;  he  had  the  golden 
hair  and  red  eyes  of  an  Albino  ;  and  his  eyelashes  and  eye- 
brows were  almost  white.  Although,  as  often  happens  in 
these  cases,  his  complexion  was  dazzlingly  fair,  its  original 
beauty  was  destroyed  by  the  very  apparent  pits  and  seams  left 
by  an  attack  of  smallpox  ;  much  reading  had  doubtless  injured 
his  eyesight,  for  he  wore  colored  spectacles.  Nor  when  he 
divested  himself  of  a  thick  overcoat,  like  a  gendarme's,  did 
his  dress  redeem  these  personal  defects. 

The  way  in  which  his  clothes  were  put  on  and  buttoned, 
like  his  untidy  cravat  and  crumpled  shirt,  were  distinctive 
signs  of  that  personal  carelessness,  laid  to  the  charge  of 
learned  men,  who  are  all,  more  or  less,  oblivious  of  their  sur- 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  209 

roundings.  His  face  and  bearing,  the  great  development  of 
chest  and  shoulders,  as  compared  with  his  thin  legs,  suggested 
a  sort  of  physical  deterioration  produced  by  meditative 
habits,  not  uncommon  in  those  who  think  much ;  but  the 
stout  heart  and  eager  intelligence  of  the  writer  of  the  letter 
were  plainly  Visible  on  a  forehead  which  might  have  been 
chiseled  in  Carrara  marble,  Nature  seemed  to  have  reserved 
her  seal  of  greatness  for  the  brow,  and  stamped  it  with  the 
steadfastness  and  goodness  of  the  man.  The  nose  was  of  the 
true  Gallic  type,  and  blunted.  The  firm,  straight  lines  of  the 
mouth  indicated  an  absolute  discretion  and  the  sense  of 
economy ;  but  the  whole  face  looked  old  before  its  time,  and 
worn  with  study. 

Mme.  Graslin  turned  to  speak  to  the  inventor.  "We 
already  owe  you  thanks,  monsieur,"  she  said,  "  for  being  so 
good  as  to  come  to  superintend  engineering  work  in  a  country 
which  can  hold  out  no  inducements  to  you  save  the  satisfac- 
tion of  knowing  that  you  can  do  good." 

"  M.  Grossetete  told  me  enough  about  you  on  our  way 
here,  madame,"  he  answered,  "  to  make  me  feel  very  glad  to 
be  of  any  use  to  you.  The  prospect  of  living  near  to  you  and 
M.  Bonnet  seemed  to  be  charming.  Unless  I  am  driven 
away,  I  look  to  spend  my  life  here." 

"  We  will  try  to  give  you  no  cause  for  changing  your 
opinion,"  said  Mme.  Graslin. 

Grossetete  took  her  aside.  "  Here  are  the  papers  which  the 
public  prosecutor  gave  me,"  he  said.  "  He  seemed  very 
much  surprised  that  you  did  not  apply  directly  to  him.  All 
that  you  have  asked  has  been  done  promptly  and  with  good- 
will. In  the  first  place,  your  protege  will  be  reinstated  in  all 
his  rights  as  a  citizen  ;  and,  in  the  second,  Catherine  Curieux 
will  be  sent  to  you  in  three  months'  time." 

"  Where  is  she  ?  "  asked  Veronique. 

"  At  the  Hopital  Saint-Louis,"  Grossetete  answered.    "  She 
cannot  leave  Paris  until  she  is  recoYered." 
U 


210  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"  Ah  !  is  she  ill,  poor  thing?  " 

"You  will  find  all  that  you  want  to  know  here,"  said 
Grossetdte,  holding  out  a  packet. 

Veronique  went  back  to  her  guests,  and  led  the  way  to  the 
magnificent  dining-hall  on  the  ground  floor,  walking  between 
Grossetete  and  Gerard.  She  presided  over  the  dinner  with- 
out joining  them,  for  she  had  made  it  a  rule  to  take  her 
meals  alone  since  she  had  come  to  Montegnac.  No  one  but 
Aline  was  in  the  secret,  which  the  girl  kept  scrupulously  until 
her  mistress  was  in  danger  of  her  life. 

The  mayor  of  Montegnac,  the  justice  of  the  peace,  and  the 
doctor  had  naturally  been  invited  to  meet  the  newcomer. 

The  doctor,  a  young  man  of  seven-and-twenty,  Roubaud 
by  name,  was  keenly  desirous  of  making  the  acquaintance  of 
the  great  lady  of  Limousin.  The  cure  was  the  better  pleased 
to  introduce  him  at  the  chateau  since  it  was  M.  Bonnet's  wish 
that  Veronique  should  gather  some  sort  of  society  about  her, 
to  distract  her  thoughts  from  herself,  and  to  find  some  mental 
food.  Roubaud  was  one  of  the  young  doctors  perfectly 
equipped  in  his  science,  such  as  the  Ecole  de  Medecine  turns 
out  in  Paris,  a  man  who  might,  without  doubt,  have  looked 
to  a  brilliant  future  in  the  vast  theatre  of  the  capital ;  but  he 
had  seen  something  of  the  strife  of  ambitions  there,  and  took 
fright,  conscious  that  he  had  more  knowledge  than  capacity 
for  scheming,  more  aptitude  than  greed ;  his  gentle  nature 
had  inclined  him  to  the  narrower  theatre  of  provincial  life, 
where  he  hoped  to  win  appreciation  sooner  than  in  Paris. 

At  Limoges  Roubaud  had  come  into  collision  with  old- 
fashioned  ways  and  patients  not  to  be  shaken  in  their  preju- 
dices ;  he  had  been  won  over  by  M.  Bonnet,  who  at  sight  of 
the  kindly  and  prepossessing  face  had  thought  that  here  was 
a  worker  to  co-operate  with  him.  Roubaud  was  short  and 
fair-haired,  and  would  have  been  rather  uninteresting  looking 
but  for  the  gray  eyes,  which  revealed  the  physiologist's 
sagacity   and    the   perseverance   of    the   student.      Hitherto 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  211 

Montegnac  was  fain  to  be  content  with  an  old  army  surgeon, 
who  found  his  cellars  a  good  deal  more  interesting  than  his 
patients,  and  who,  moreover,  was  past  the  hard  work  of  a 
country  doctor.  He  happened  to  die  just  at  that  time. 
Roubaud  had  been  in  Montegnac  for  some  eighteen  months, 
and  was  very  popular  there;  but  Desplein's  young  disciple, 
one  of  the  followers  of  Cabanis,  was  no  Catholic  in  his 
beliefs.  In  fact,  as  to  religion,  he  had  lapsed  into  a  fatal 
indifference,  from  which  he  was  not  to  be  roused.  He  was 
the  despair  of  the  cure,  not  that  there  was  any  harm  whatever 
in  him,  his  invariable  absence  from  church  was  excused  by  his 
profession,  he  never  talked  on  religious  topics,  he  was  incapa- 
ble of  making  proselytes,  no  good  Catholic  could  have  be- 
haved better  than  he,  but  he  declined  to  occupy  himself  with 
a  problem  which,  to  his  thinking,  was  beyond  the  scope  of  the 
human  mind  ;  and  the  cure  once  hearing  him  let  fall  the 
remark  that  Pantheism  was  the  religion  of  all  great  thinkers, 
fancied  that  Roubaud  inclined  to  the  Pythagorean  doctrine 
of  the  transformation  of  souls. 

Roubaud,  meeting  Mme.  Graslin  for  the  first  time,  felt  vio- 
lently startled  at  the  sight  of  her.  His  medical  knowledge 
enabled  him  to  divine  in  her  face  and  bearing  and  worn  fea- 
tures unheard-of  suffering  of  mind  and  body,  a  preternatural 
strength  of  character,  and  the  great  faculties  which  can  endure 
the  strain  of  very  different  vicissitudes.  He,  in  a  manner, 
read  her  inner  history,  even  the  dark  places  deliberately  hid- 
den away ;  and  more  than  this,  he  saw  the  disease  that  preyed 
upon  the  secret  heart  of  this  fair  woman  ;  for  there  are  certain 
tints  in  human  faces  that  indicate  a  poison  working  in  the 
thoughts,  even  as  the  color  of  fruit  will  betray  the  presence 
of  the  worm  at  its  core.  From  that  time  forward  M.  Roubaud 
felt  so  strongly  attracted  to  Mme.  Graslin,  that  he  feared  to 
be  drawn  beyond  the  limit  where  friendship  ends.  There  was 
an  eloquence,  which  men  always  understand,  in  Veronique's 
brows  and  attitude,  and,  above  all,  in  her  eyes ;  it  was  suffix 


212  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

ciently  unmistakable  that  she  was  dead  to  love,  even  as  other 
women  with  a  like  eloquence  proclaim  the  contrary.  The 
doctor  became  her  chivalrous  worshiper  on  the  spot.  He 
exchanged  a  swift  glance  with  the  cure,  and  M.  Bonnet  said 
within  himself — 

"  Here  is  the  flash  from  heaven  that  will  change  this 
poor  unbeliever?  Mme.  Graslin  will  have  more  eloquence 
than  I." 

The  mayor,  an  old  countryman,  overawed  by  the  splendor 
of  the  dining-room,  and  surprised  to  be  asked  to  meet  one  of 
the  richest  men  in  the  department,  had  put  on  his  best  clothes 
for  the  occasion ;  he  felt  somewhat  uneasy  in  them,  and 
scarcely  more  at  ease  with  his  company.  Mme.  Graslin,  too, 
in  her  mourning  dress  was  an  awe-inspiring  figure  ;  the  worthy 
mayor  was  dumb.  He  had  once  been  a  farmer  at  Saint- 
Leonard,  had  bought  the  one  habitable  house  in  the  township, 
and  cultivated  the  land  that  belonged  to  it  himself.  He  could 
read  and  write,  but  only  managed  to  acquit  himself  in  his 
official  capacity  with  the  help  of  the  justice's  clerk,  who  pre- 
pared his  work  for  him ;  so  he  ardently  desired  the  advent  of 
a  notary,  meaning  to  lay  the  burden  of  his  public  duties  on 
official  shoulders  when  that  day  should  come ;  but  Montegnac 
was  so  poverty-stricken  that  a  resident  notary  was  hardly 
needed,  and  the  notaries  of  the  principal  place  in  the  arron- 
dissement  found  clients  in  Montegnac. 

The  justice  of  the  peace,  Clousier  by  name,  was  a  retired 
barrister  from  Limoges.  Briefs  had  grown  scarce  with  the 
learned  gentleman,  owing  to  a  tendency  on  his  part  to  put  in 
practice  the  noble  maxim  that  a  barrister  is  the  first  judge  of 
the  client  and  the  case.  About  the  year  1809  he  obtained 
this  appointment;  the  salary  was  a  meagre  pittance,  but 
enough  to  live  upon.  In  this  way  he  had  reached  the  most 
honorable  but  the  most  complete  penury.  .  Twenty-two  years 
of  residence  in  the  poor  commune  had  transformed  the  worthy 
lawyer  into  a  countryman,  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  213 

any  of  the  small  farmers  round  about,  whom  he  resembled 
even  in  the  cut  of  his  coat.  But  beneath  Clousier's  homely 
exterior  dwelt  a  clairvoyant  spirit,  a  philosophical  politician 
whose  Gallio's  attitude  was  due  to  his  perfect  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  of  men's  motives.  For  a  long  time  he  had 
baffled  M.  Bonnet's  perspicacity.  The  man  who,  in  a  higher 
sphere,  might  have  played  the  active  part  of  a  L'Hopital,  in- 
capable of  intrigue,  like  all  deep  thinkers,  had  come  at  last 
to  lead  the  contemplative  life  of  a  hermit  of  olden  time. 
Rich  without  doubt  with  all  the  gains  of  privation,  he  was 
swayed  by  no  personal  considerations ;  he  knew  the  law,  and 
judged  impartially.  His  life,  reduced  to  the  barest  neces- 
saries, was  regular  and  pure.  The  peasants  loved  and  re- 
spected M.  Clousier  for  the  fatherly  disinterestedness  with 
which  he  settled  their  disputes  and  gave  advice  in  even  their 
smallest  difficulties.  For  the  last  two  years  "Old  Clousier," 
as  every  one  called  him  in  Montegnac,  had  had  one  of  his 
nephews  to  help  him,  a  rather  intelligent  young  man,  who,  at 
a  later  day,  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
commune. 

The  most  striking  thing  about  the  old  man's  face  was  the 
broad  vast  forehead.  Two  bushy  masses  of  white  hair  stood 
out  on  either  side  of  it.  A  florid  complexion  and  magiste- 
rial portliness  might  give  the  impression  that  (in  spite  of  his 
real  sobriety)  he  was  as  earnest  a  disciple  of  Bacchus  as  of 
Troplong  and  Toullier.  His  scarcely  audible  voice  indicated 
asthmatic  oppression  of  breathing ;  possibly  the  dry  air  of 
Montegnac  had  counted  for  something  in  his  decision  when 
he  made  up  his  mind  to  accept  the  post.  His  little  house  had 
been  fitted  up  for  him  by  the  well-to-do  sabot-maker,  his  land- 
lord. 

Clousier  had  already  seen  Veronique  at  the  church,  and 
had  formed  his  own  opinion  of  her,  which  opinion  he  kept  to 
himself;  he  had  not  even  spoken  of  her  to  M.  Bonnet,  with 
whom  he  was  beginning  to  feel  at  home.     For  the  first  time  in 

U 


214  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

his  life,  the  justice  of  the  peace  found  himself  in  the  company 
of  persons  able  to  understand  him. 

When  the  six  guests  had  taken  their  places  round  a  hand- 
somely-appointed table  (for  Veronique  had  brought  all  her 
furniture  with  her  to  Montegnac),  there  was  a  brief  embar- 
rassed pause.  The  doctor,  the  mayor,  and  the  justice  were 
none  of  them  acquainted  with  Grossetete  or  with  Gerard. 
But  during  the  first  course  the  banker's  geniality  thawed  the 
ice,  Mme.  Graslin  graciously  encouraged  M.  Roubaud  and 
drew  out  Gerard ;  under  her  influence  all  these  different 
natures,  full  of  exquisite  qualities,  recognized  their  kinship. 
It  was  not  long  before  each  felt  himself  to  be  in  a  congenial 
atmosphere.  So  that  by  the  time  dessert  was  put  on  the  table, 
and  the  crystal  and  the  gilded  edges  of  the  porcelain  sparkled, 
when  choice  wines  were  set  in  circulation,  handed  to  the 
guests  by  Aline,  Maurice  Champion,  and  Grossetete's  man, 
the  conversation  had  become  more  confidential,  so  that  the  four 
noble  natures  thus  brought  together  by  chance  felt  free  to 
speak  their  real  minds  on  the  great  subjects  that  men  love  to 
discuss  in  good  faith. 

"  Your  leave  of  absence  coincided  with  the  Revolution  of 
July,"  Grossetdte  said,  looking  at  Gerard  in  a  way  that  asked 
his  opinion. 

"  Yes,"  answered  the  engineer.  "  I  was  in  Paris  during 
the  three  famous  days ;  I  saw  it  all ;  I  drew  some  disheart- 
ening conclusions." 

"What  were  they?"  M.  Bonnet  asked  quickly. 

"There  is  no  patriotism  left  except  under  the  workman's 
shirt,"  answered  Gerard.  "  Therein  lies  the  ruin  of  France. 
The  Revolution  of  July  is  the  defeat  of  men  who  are  notable 
for  birth,  fortune,  and  talent,  and  a  defeat  in  which  they 
acquiesce.  The  enthusiastic  zeal  of  the  masses  has  gained  a 
victory  over  the  rich  and  intelligent  classes,  to  whom  zeal  and 
enthusiasm  are  antipathetic." 

"To  judge  by  last  year's  events,"  added  M.  Clousier,  "the 


MADAME  GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  215 

change  is  a  direct  encouragement  to  the  evil  which  is  devour- 
ing us — to  individualism.  In  fifty  years'  time  every  generous 
question  will  be  replaced  by  a  *  What  is  that  to  me  ? '  the 
watchword  of  independent  opinion  descended  from  the  spiri- 
tual heights  where  Luther,  Calvin,  Zwingle,  and  Knox  inau- 
gurated it,  till  even  in  political  economy  each  has  a  right  to 
his  own  opinion.  Each  for  himself  !  Lei  each  man  mind  his 
own  business  / — these  two  terrible  phrases,  together  with  What 
is  that  to  me  ?  complete  a  trinity  of  doctrine  for  the  bour- 
geoisie and  the  peasant  proprietors.  This  egoism  is  the  result 
of  defects  in  our  civil  legislation,  somewhat  too  hastily  accom- 
plished in  the  first  instance,  and  now  confirmed  by  the  terrible 
consecration  of  the  Revolution  of  July." 

The  justice  relapsed  into  his  wonted  silence  again  with  this 
speech,  which  gave  the  guests  plenty  to  think  over.  Then  M. 
Bonnet  ventured  yet  further,  encouraged  by  Clousier's  re- 
marks, '  and  by  a  glance  exchanged  between  Gerard  and 
Grosset&te. 

"Good  King  Charles  X.,"  said  he,  "  has  just  failed  in  the 
most  provident  and  salutary  enterprise  that  king  ever  under- 
took for  the  happiness  of  a  nation  intrusted  to  him.  The 
Church  should  be  proud  of  the  share  she  had  in  his  councils. 
But  it  was  the  heart  and  brain  of  the  upper  classes  which  failed 
him,  as  they  had  failed  before  over  the  great  question  of  the 
law  with  regard  to  the  succession  of  the  eldest  son,  the  eternal 
honor  of  the  one  bold  statesman  of  the  Restoration — the 
Comte  de  Peyronnet.  To  reconstruct  the  nation  on  the  basis 
of  the  family,  to  deprive  the  press  of  its  power  to  do  harm 
without  restricting  its  usefulness,  to  confine  the  elective  cham- 
ber to  the  functions  for  which  it  was  really  intended,  to  give 
back  to  religion  its  influence  over  the  people — such  were  the 
four  cardinal  points  of  the  domestic  policy  of  the  House  of 
Bourbon.  Well,  in  twenty  years'  time  all  France  will  see  the 
necessity  of  that  great  and  salutary  course.  King  Charles  X. 
was,  moreover,  more  insecure  in  the  position  which  he  decided 


216  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

to  quit  than  in  the  position  in  which  his  paternal  authority 
came  to  an  end.  The  future  history  of  our  fair  country,  when 
everything  shall  be  periodically  called  in  question,  when  cease- 
less discussion  shall  take  the  place  of  action,  when  the  press 
shall  become  the  sovereign  power  and  the  tool  of  the  basest 
ambitions,  will  prove  the  wisdom  of  the  king  who  has  just 
taken  with  him  the  real  principles  of  government.  History 
will  render  to  him  his  due  for  the  courage  with  which  he  with- 
stood his  best  friends,  when  once  he  had  probed  the  wound, 
seen  its  extent,  and  the  pressing  necessity  for  the  treatment, 
which  has  not  been  continued  by  those  for  whom  he  threw 
himself  into  the  breach." 

"Well,  M.  le  Cure,  you  go  straight  to  the  point  without 
the  slightest  disguise,"  cried  M.  Gerard,  "  but  I  do  not  say 
nay.  When  Napoleon  made  his  Russian  campaign  he  was 
forty  years  ahead  of  his  age ;  he  was  misunderstood.  Russia 
and  England,  in  1830,  can  explain  the  campaign  of  181 2. 
Charles  X.  was  in  the  same  unfortunate  position  ;  twenty-five 
years  hence  his  ordinances  may  perhaps  become  law." 

"France,  too  eloquent  a  country  not  to  babble,  too  vain- 
glorious to  recognize  real  ability,  in  spite  of  the  sublime  good 
sense  of  her  language  and  the  mass  of  her  people,  is  the  very 
last  country  in  which  to  introduce  the  system  of  two  deliber- 
ating chambers,"  the  justice  of  the  peace  remarked.  "At 
any  rate,  not  without  the  admirable  safeguards  against  these 
elements  in  the  national  character,  devised  by  Napoleon's 
experience.  The  representative  system  may  work  in  a  country 
like  England,  where  its  action  is  circumscribed  by  the  nature 
of  the  soil ;  but  the  right  of  primogeniture,  as  applied  to  real 
estate,  is  a  necessary  part  of  it ;  without  this  factor,  the  repre- 
sentative system  becomes  sheer  nonsense.  England  owes  its 
existence  to  the  quasi-feudal  law  which  transmitted  the  house 
and  lands  to  the  oldest  son.  Russia  is  firmly  seated  on  the 
feudal  system  of  autocracy.  For  these  reasons,  both  nations 
at  the  present  day  are  making   alarming  progress.     Austria 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  217 

could  not  have  resisted  our  invasions  as  she  did,  nor  declared 
a  second  war  against  Napoleon,  had  it  not  been  for  the  law  of 
primogeniture,  which  preserves  the  strength  of  the  family  and 
maintains  production  on  the  large  scale  necessary  to  the  state. 
The  House  of  Bourbon,  conscious  that  liberalism  had  relegated 
France  to  the  rank  of  a  third-rate  power  in  Europe,  deter- 
mined to  regain  and  keep  their  place,  and  the  country  shook 
off  the  Bourbons  when  they  had  all  but  saved  the  country.  I 
do  not  know  how  deep  the  present  state  of  things  will  sink  us." 

"If  there  should  be  a  war,"  cried  Grosset6te,  "France 
will  be  without  horses,  as  Napoleon  was  in  1813,  when  he  was 
reduced  to  the  resources  of  France  alone,  and  could  not 
make  use  of  the  victories  of  Lutzen  and  Bautzen,  and  was 
crushed  at  Leipsic  !  If  peace  continues,  the  evil  will  grow 
worse :  twenty  years  hence  the  number  of  horned  cattle  and 
horses  in  France  will  be  diminished  by  one-half." 

"  M.  Grossetete  is  right,"  said  Gerard.  "So  the  work 
which  you  have  decided  to  attempt  here  is  a  service  done  to 
your  country,  madame,"  he  added,  turning  to  Veronique. 

"Yes,"  said  the  justice  of  the  peace,  "because  Mine. 
Graslin  has  but  one  son.  But  will  this  chance  in  the  succes- 
sion repeat  itself?  For  a  certain  time,  let  us  hope,  the  great 
and  magnificent  scheme  of  cultivation  which  you  are  to 
carry  into  effect  will  be  in  the  hands  of  one  owner,  and  there- 
fore will  continue  to  provide  grazing  land  for  horses  and 
cattle.  But,  in  spite  of  all,  a  day  will  come  when  forest  and 
field  will  be  either  divided  up  or  sold  in  lots.  Division  and 
subdivision  will  follow,  until  the  six  thousand  acres  of  plain 
will  count  ten  or  twelve  hundred  owners ;  and  when  that  time 
comes  there  will  be  no  more  horses  nor  prize  cattle." 

"  Oh  !  when  that  time  comes "  said  the  mayor. 

"There  is  a  What  is  that  to  me?"  cried  M.  Grossetete, 
"and  M.  Clousier  sounded  the  signal  for  it ;  he  is  caught  in 
the  act.  But,  monsieur,"  the  banker  went  on  gravely, 
addressing   the   bewildered    mayor,    "  the   time   has    come  i 


218  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Round  about  Paris  for  a  ten-league  radius,  the  land  is  divided 
up  into  little  patches  that  will  hardly  pasture  sufficient  milch 
cows.  The  commune  of  Argenteuil  numbers  thirty-eight 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  eighty-five  plots  of  land,  a  good 
many  of  them  bringing  in  less  than  fifteen  centimes  a  year ! 
If  it  were  not  for  high  farming  and  manure  from  Paris,  which 
give  heavy  crops  of  fodder  of  different  kinds,  I  do  not  know 
how  cow-keepers  and  dairymen  would  manage.  As  it  is,  the 
animals  are  peculiarly  subject  to  inflammatory  diseases  con- 
sequent on  the  heating  diet  and  confinement  to  cow-sheds. 
They  wear  out  their  cows  round  about  £aris  just  as  they  wear 
out  horses  in  the  streets.  Then  market-gardens,  orchards, 
nurseries,  and  vineyards  pay  so  much  better  than  pasture,  that 
the  grazing  land  is  gradually  diminishing.  A  few  years  more, 
and  milk  will  be  sent  in  by  express  to  Paris,  like  saltfish,  and 
what  is  going  on  round  Paris  is  happening  also  about  all  large 
towns.  The  evils  of  the  minute  subdivision  of  landed  prop- 
erty are  extending  round  a  hundred  French  cities;  some  day 
all  France  will  be  ^aten  up  by  them. 

"In  1800,  according  to  Chaptal,  there  were  about  five 
million  acres  of  vineyard ;  exact  statistics  would  show  fully 
five  times  as  much  to-day.  When  Normandy  is  split  up  into 
an  infinitude  of  small  holdings,  by  our  system  of  inheritance 
fifty  per  cent,  of  the  horse  and  cattle  trade  there  will  fall  off; 
still  Normandy  will  have  the  monopoly  of  the  Paris  milk 
trade,  for  luckily  the  climate  will  not  permit  vine  culture. 
Another  curious  thing  to  notice  is  the  steady  rise  in  the  price 
of  butcher  meat.  In  1814,  prices  ranged  from  seven  to 
eleven  sous  per  pound  ;  in  1850,  twenty  years  hence,  Paris 
will  pay  twenty  sous,  unless  some  genius  is  raised  up  to  carry 
out  the  theories  of  Charles  X." 

"You  have  pointed  out  the  greatest  evil  in  France,"  said 
the  justice  of  the  peace.  "  The  cause  of  it  lies  in  the  chapter 
Des  Successions  in  the  Civil  Code,  wherein  the  equal  division 
of  real  estate  among  the  children  of  the  family  is  required. 


MADAME    GKASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  219 

That  is  the  pestle  which  is  constantly  grinding  the  country 
to  powder,  gives  to  every  one  but  a  life-interest  in  property 
which  cannot  remain  as  it  is  after  his  death.  A  continuous 
process  of  decomposition  (for  the  reverse  process  is  never  set 
up)  will  end  by  ruining  France.  The  French  Revolution 
generated  a  deadly  virus,  and  the  Days  of  July  have  set  the 
poison  working  afresh ;  this  dangerous  germ  of  disease  is  the 
acquisition  of  land  by  peasants.  If  the  chapter  Des  Successions 
is  the  origin  of  the  evil,  it  is  through  the  peasant  that  it 
reaches  its  worst  phase.  The  peasant  never  relinquishes  the 
land  he  has  won.  Let  a  bit  of  land  once  get  between  the 
ogre's  ever-hungry  jaws,  he  divides  and  subdivides  it  until  there 
are  but  strips  of  three  furrows  left.  Nay,  even  there  he  does 
not  stop  !  he  will  divide  the  three  furrows  in  lengths.  The 
commune  of  Argenteuil,  which  M.  Grossetete  instanced  just 
now,  is  a  case  in  point.  The  preposterous  value  which  the 
peasants  set  on  the  smallest  scraps  of  land  makes  it  quite  im- 
possible to  reconstruct  an  estate.  The  law  and  procedure  are 
made  a  dead  letter  at  once  by  this  division,  and  ownership  is 
reduced  to  absurdity.  But  it  is  a  comparatively  trifling 
matter  that  the  minute  subdivision  of  the  law  should  paralyze 
the  treasury  and  the  law  by  making  it  impossible  to  carry  out 
its  wisest  regulations.  There  are  far  greater  evils  than  even 
these.  There  are  actually  landlords  of  property  bringing  in 
fifteen  and  twenty  centimes  per  annum  ! 

"Monsieur  has  just  said  something  about  the  falling  off 
of  cattle  and  horses,"  Clousier  continued,  looking  at  Gros- 
setete; "  the  system  of  inheritance  counts  for  much  in  that 
matter.  The  peasant  proprietor  keeps  cows,  and  cows  only, 
because  milk  enters  into  his  diet;  he  sells  the  calves;  he  even 
sells  butter.  He  has  no  mind  to  raise  oxen,  still  less  to  breed 
horses;  he  has  only  just  sufficient  fodder  for  a  year's  consump- 
tion ;  and  when  a  dry  spring  comes  and  hay  is  scarce,  he  is 
forced  to  take  his  cow  to  market ;  he  cannot  afford  to  keep 
her.     If  it  should   fall  out   so  unluckily  that  two  bad   hay 


220  THE  COUNTRY  PARSON. 

harvests  came  in  succession,  you  would  see  some  strange 
fluctuations  in  the  price  of  beef  in  Paris,  and,  above  all,  in 
veal,  when  the  third  year  came." 

"And  how  would  they  do  for  patriotic  banquets  then?" 
asked  the  doctor,  smiling. 

"Ah!"  exclaimed  Mme.  Graslin,  glancing  at  Roubaud, 
"so  even  here,  as  everywhere  else,  politics  must  be  served  up 
with  journalistic  items." 

"In  this  bad  business  the  bourgeoisie  play  the  part  of 
American  pioneers,"  continued  Clousier.  "  They  buy  up  the 
large  estates,  too  large  for  the  peasant  to  meddle  with,  and 
divide  them.  After  the  bulk  has  been  cut  up  and  triturated, 
a  forced  sale  or  an  ordinary  sale  in  lots  hands  it  over  sooner 
or  later  to  the  peasant.  Everything  nowadays  is  reduced  to 
figures,  and  I  know  of  none  more  eloquent  than  these: 
France  possesses  forty-nine  million  hectares  of  land,  for  the 
sake  of  convenience,  let  us  say  forty,  deducting  something  for 
roads  and  high-roads,  dunes,  canals,  land  out  of  cultivation, 
and  wastes  like  the  plain  of  Montegnac,  which  need  capital. 
Now,  out  of  forty  million  hectares  to  a  population  of  thirty- 
two  millions,  there  are  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  million 
parcels  of  land,  according  to  the  land-tax  returns.  I  have 
not  taken  the  fractions  into  account.  So  we  have  outrun  the 
agrarian  law,  and  yet  neither  poverty  nor  discord  are  at  an 
end.  Then  the  next  thing  will  be  that  those  who  are  turning 
the  land  into  crumbs  and  diminishing  the  output  of  produce 
will  find  mouthpieces  for  the  cry  that  true  social  justice  only 
permits  the  usufruct  of  the  land  to  each.  They  will  say  that 
ownership  in  perpetuity  is  robbery.  The  Saint-Simonians 
have  begun  already." 

"There  spoke  the  magistrate,"  said  Grossetete,  "and  this 
is  what  the  banker  adds  to  his  bold  reflections.  When  landed 
property  became  tenable  by  peasants  and  small  shopkeepers,  a 
great  wrong  was  done  to  France,  though  the  government  does 
not  so  much  as  suspect  it.     Suppose  that  we  set  down  the 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  221 

whole  mass  of  the  peasants  at  three  million  families,  after 
deducting  the  paupers.  Those  families  all  belong  to  the  wage- 
earning  class.  Their  wages  are  paid  in  money  instead  of  in 
kind " 

"There  is  another  immense  blunder  in  our  legislation," 
Clousier  cried,  breaking  in  on  the  banker.  "In  1790  it 
might  still  have  been  possible  to  pass  a  law  empowering 
employers  to  pay  wages  in  kind,  but  now — to  introduce 
such  a  measure  would  be  to  risk  a  revolution." 

"In  this  way,"  Grossetete  continued,  "the  money  of  the 
country  passes  into  the  pockets  of  the  proletariat.  Now,  the 
peasant  has  one  passion,  one  desire,  one  determination,  one 
aim  in  life — to  die  a  landed  proprietor.  This  desire,  as  M. 
Clousier  has  very  clearly  shown,  is  one  result  of  the  Revolu- 
tion— a  direct  consequence  of  the  sale  of  the  national  lands. 
Only  those  who  have  no  idea  of  the  state  of  things  in  country 
districts  could  refuse  to  admit  that  each  of  those  three  million 
families  annually  buries  fifty  francs  as  a  regular  thing,  and  in 
this  way  a  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  francs  are  withdrawn 
from  circulation  every  year.  The  science  of  political  econ- 
omy has  reduced  to  an  axiom  the  statement  that  a  five-franc 
piece,  if  it  passes  through  a  hundred  hands  in  the  course  of  a 
day,  does  duty  for  five  hundred  francs.  Now,  it  is  certain  for 
some  of  us  old  observers  of  the  state  of  things  in  country 
districts  that  the  peasant  fixes  his  eyes  on  a  bit  of  land,  keeps 
ready  to  pounce  upon  it,  and  bides  his  time — meanwhile  he 
never  invests  his  capital.  The  intervals  in  the  peasant's  land- 
purchases  should,  therefore,  be  reckoned  at  periods  of  seven 
years.  For  seven  years,  consequently,  a  capital  of  eleven 
hundred  million  francs  is  lying  idle  in  the  peasants'  hands; 
and  as  the  lower  middle  classes  do  the  same  thing  to  quite  the 
same  extent,  and  behave  in  the  same  way  with  regard  to 
land  on  too  large  a  scale  for  the  peasant  to  nibble  at,  in  forty- 
two  years  France  loses  the  interest  on  two  milliards  of  francs 
at  least — that  is  to  say,  on  something  like  a  hundred  millions 


222  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

every  seven  years,  or  six  hundred  millions  in  forty-two  years. 
But  this  is  not  the  only  loss.  France  has  failed  to  create  the 
worth  of  six  hundred  millions  in  agricultural  or  industrial 
produce.  And  this  failure  to  produce  may  be  taken  as  a  loss 
of  twelve  hundred  million  francs  ;  fur  if  the  market  price  of 
a  product  were  not  double  the  actual  cost  of  production,  com- 
merce would  be  at  a  standstill.  The  proletariat  deprives  itself 
of  six  hundred  million  francs  of  wages.  These  six  hundred 
millions  of  initial  loss  that  represent,  for  an  economist, 
twelve  hundred  millions  of  loss  of  benefit  derived  from  circu- 
lation, explain  how  it  is  that  our  commerce,  shipping  trade, 
and  agriculture  compare  so  badly  with  the  state  of  things  in 
England.  In  spite  of  the  differences  between  the  two  countries 
(a  good  two-thirds  of  them,  moreover,  in  our  favor),  England 
could  mount  our  cavalry  twice  over,  and  every  one  there 
eats  meat.  But  then,  under  the  English  system  of  land- 
tenure,  it  is  almost  impossible  for  the  working  classes  to 
buy  land,  and  so  all  the  money  is  kept  in  constant  circulation. 
So  besides  the  evils  of  the  comminution  of  the  land,  and 
the  decay  of  the  trade  in  cattle,  horses,  and  sheep,  the 
chapter  Des  Successions  costs  us  a  further  loss  of  six  hundred 
million  francs  of  interest  on  the  capital  buried  by  the  peasants 
and  trades-people,  or  twelve  hundred  million  francs'  worth  of 
produce  (at  the  least) — that  is  to  say,  a  total  loss  of  three 
milliards  of  francs  withdrawn  from  circulation  every  half- 
century." 

"The  moral  effect  is  worse  than  the  material  effect!" 
cried  the  cure.  "We  are  turning  the  peasantry  into  pauper 
landowners,  and  half  educating  the  lower  middle  classes.  It 
will  not  be  long  before  the  canker  of  Each  for  himself !  Let 
each  mind  his  own  business  !  which  did  its  work  last  July  among 
the  upper  classes,  will  spread  to  the  middle  classes.  A  pro- 
letariat of  hardened  materialists,  knowing  no  God  but  envyr 
no  zeal  but  the  despair  of  hunger,  with  no  faith  nor  belief 
left,  will  come   to  the  front,  and   trample  the  heart  of  the 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  223 

country  under  foot.  The  foreigner,  waxing  great  under  a 
monarchical  government,  will  find  us  under  the  shadow  of 
royalty  without  the  reality  of  a  king,  without  law  under  the 
cover  of  legality,  owners  of  property  but  not  proprietors,  with 
the  right  of  election  but  without  a  government,  listless  holders 
of  free  and  independent  opinions,  equal  but  equally  unfor- 
tunate. Let  us  hope  that  between  now  and  then  God  will 
raise  up  in  France  the  man  for  the  time,  one  of  those  elect 
who  breathe  a  new  spirit  into  a  nation,  a  man  who,  whether 
he  is  a  Sylla  or  a  Marius,  whether  he  comes  from  the  heights 
or  rises  from  the  depths,  will  reconstruct  society." 

"The  first  thing  to  do  will  be  to  send  him  to  the  assizes 
or  to  the  police  court,"  said  Gerard.  "The  judgment  of 
Socrates  or  of  Christ  will  be  given  to  him,  here  in  1 831,  as  of 
old  in  Attica  and  at  Jerusalem.  To-day,  as  of  old,  jealous 
mediocrity  allows  the  thinker  to  starve.  If  the  great  political 
physicians  who  have  studied  the  diseases  of  France,  and  are 
opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  should  resist  to  the  starva- 
tion-point, we  ridicule  them,  and  treat  them  as  visionaries. 
Here  in  France  we  revolt  against  the  sovereign  thinker,  the 
great  man  of  the  future,  just  as  we  rise  in  revolt  against  the 
political  sovereign." 

"But  in  those  old  times  the  Sophists  had  a  very  limited 
audience,"  cried  the  justice  of  the  peace;  "while  to-day, 
through  the  medium  of  the  periodical  press,  they  can  lead 
a  whole  nation  astray  ;  and  the  press  which  pleads  for  com- 
mon-sense finds  no  echo  !  " 

The  mayor  looked  at  M.  Clousier  with  intense  astonish- 
ment. Mme.  Graslin,  delighted  to  find  a  simple  justice  of  the 
peace  interested  in  such  grave  problems,  turned  to  her  neigh- 
bor, M.  Roubaud,  with,  "Do  you  know  M.  Clousier?  " 

"Not  till  to-day!  Madame,  you  are  working  miracles," 
he  added  in  her  ear.  "And  yet  look  at  his  forehead,  how 
finely  shaped  it  is  !  It  is  like  the  classical  or  traditional 
brow  that  sculptors  gave  to  Lycurgus  and  the  wise  men  of 


224  THE    COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Greece,  is  it  not?  Clearly  there  was  an  impolitic  side  to  the 
Revolution  of  July,"  he  added  aloud,  after  going  through  Gros- 
set£te's  reasonings.  He  had  been  a  medical  student,  and 
perhaps  would  have  lent  a  hand  at  a  barricade. 

"  'Twas  trebly  impolitic,"  said  Clousier.  "  We  have  con- 
cluded the  case  for  law  and  finance,  now  for  the  government. 
The  royal  power,  weakened  by  the  dogma  of  the  national 
sovereignty,  in  virtue  of  which  the  election  was  made  on  the 
9th  of  August,  1830,  will  strive  to  overcome  its  rival,  a  prin- 
ciple which  gives  the  people  the  right  of  changing  a  dynasty 
every  time  they  fail  to  apprehend  the  intentions  of  their 
king;  so  there  is  a  domestic  struggle  before  us  which  will 
check  progress  in  France  for  a  long  while  yet." 

"  England  has  wisely  steered  clear  of  all  these  sunken 
rocks,"  said  Gerard.  "I  have  been  in  England.  I  admire 
the  hive  which  sends  swarms  over  the  globe  to  settle  and 
civilize.  In  England  political  debate  is  a  comedy  intended 
to  satisfy  the  people  and  to  hide  the  action  of  authority 
which  moves  untrammeled  in  its  lofty  sphere;  election  there 
is  not,  as  in  France,  the  referring  of  a  question  to  a  stupid 
bourgeoisie.  If  the  land  were  divided  up,  England  would 
cease  to  exist  at  once.  The  great  landowners  and  the  lords 
control  the  machinery  of  government.  They  have  a  navy 
which  takes  possession  of  whole  quarters  of  the  globe  (and 
under  the  very  eyes  of  Europe)  to  fulfill  the  exigencies  of 
their  trade,  and  form  colonies  for  the  discontented  and 
unsatisfactory.  Instead  of  waging  war  on  men  of  ability, 
annihilating  and  underrating  them,  the  English  aristocracy 
continually  seeks  them  out,  rewards  and  assimilates  them. 
The  English  are  prompt  to  act  in  all  that  concerns  the  govern- 
ment, and  in  the  choice  of  men  and  material,  while  with  us 
action  of  any  kind  is  slow  ;  and  yet  they  are  slow,  and  we 
impatient.  Capital  with  them  is  adventurous,  and  always 
moving  ;  with  us  it  is  shy  and  suspicious.  Here  is  corrobora- 
tion of  M.  Grosseteite's  statements  about  the  loss  to  industry 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  225 

of  the  peasants'  capital ;  I  can  sketch  the  difference  in  a  few 
words.  English  capital,  which  is  constantly  circulating,  has 
created  ten  milliards  of  wealth  in  the  shape  of  expanded 
manufactures  and  joint-stock  companies  paying  dividends; 
while  here  in  France,  though  we  have  more  capital,  it  has  not 
yielded  one-tenth  part  of  the  profit." 

"It  is  all  the  more  extraordinary,"  said  Roubaud,  "since 
they  are  lymphatic,  and  we  are  generally  either  sanguine  or 
nervous." 

"  Here  is  a  great  problem  for  you  to  study,  monsieur," 
said  Clousier.  "  Given  a  national  temperament,  to  find  the 
institutions  best  adapted  to  counteract  it.  Truly,  Cromwell 
was  a  great  legislator.  He,  one  man,  made  England  what 
she  is  by  promulgating  the  Act  of  Navigation,  which  made 
the  English  the  enemy  of  all  other  nations,  and  infused  into 
them  a  fierce  pride,  that  has  served  them  as  a  lever.  But  in 
spite  of  their  garrison  at  Malta,  as  soon  as  France  and  Russia 
fully  understand  the  part  to  be  played  in  politics  by  the  Black 
Sea  and  the  Mediterranean,  the  discovery  of  a  new  route  to 
Asia  by  way  of  Egypt  or  the  Euphrates  valley  will  be  a  death- 
blow to  England,  just  as  the  discovery  of  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  was  the  ruin  of  Venice." 

"  And  nothing  of  God  in  all  this  !  "  cried  the  cure.  "  M. 
Clousier  and  M.  Roubaud  are  quite  indifferent  in  matters  of 

religion and  you,  monsieur?"    he  asked  questioningly, 

turning  to  Gerard. 

"A  Protestant,"  said  GrossetSte. 

"You  guessed  rightly!"  exclaimed  Veronique,  with  a 
glance  at  the  cure  as  she  offered  her  hand  to  Clousier  to 
return  to  her  apartments. 

All  prejudices  excited  by  M.  Gerard's  appearance  quickly 
vanished,  and  the  three  notables  of  Montegnac  congratulated 
themselves  on  such  an  acquisition. 

"Unluckily,"  said  M.  Bonnet,  "there  is  a  cause  for  an- 
tagonism between  Russia  and  the  Catholic  countries  on  the 


226  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

shores  of  the  Mediterranean  ;  a  schism  of  little  real  impor- 
tance divides  the  Greek  Church  from  the  Latin,  to  the  great 
misfortune  of  humanity." 

"  Each  preaches  for  his  saint,"  said  Mme.  Graslin,  smiling. 
"  M.  Grosset6te  thinks  of  lost  milliards;  M.  Clousier  of  law 
in  confusion  ;  the  doctor  sees  in  legislation  a  question  of 
temperaments ;  M.  le  Cure  sees  in  religion  an  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  a  good  understanding  between  France  and  Russia." 

"  Please  add,  madame,"  said  Gerard,  "that  in  the  seques- 
tration of  capital  by  the  peasant  and  small  tradesman,  I  see 
the  delay  of  the  completion  of  railways  in  France -" 

"  Then  what  would  you  have  ?  "  asked  she. 

"  Oh  !  The  admirable  Councilors  of  State  who  devised 
laws  in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  and  the  Corps  legislatif,  when 
those  who  had  brains  as  well  as  those  who  had  property  had  a 
voice  in  the  election,  a  body  whose  sole  function  it  was  to 
oppose  unwise  laws  or  capricious  wars.  The  present  Chamber 
of  Deputies  is  like  to  end,  as  you  will  see,  by  becoming  the 
governing  body,  and  legalized  anarchy  it  will  be." 

"  Great  heavens  !  "  cried  the  cure  in  an  excess  of  lofty 
patriotism,  "  how  is  it  that  minds  so  enlightened  " — he  in- 
dicated Clousier,  Roubaud,  and  Gerard — "see  the  evil,  and 
point  out  the  remedy,  and  do  not  begin  by  applying  it  to 
themselves  ?  All  of  you  represent  the  classes  attacked  ;  all  of 
you  recognize  the  necessity  of  passive  obedience  on  the  part 
of  the  great  masses  in  the  state,  an  obedience  like  that  of  the 
soldier  in  time  of  war ;  all  of  you  desire  the  unity  of  authority, 
and  wish  that  it  shall  never  be  called  in  question.  But  that 
consolidation  to  which  England  has  attained  through  the  de« 
velopment  of  pride  and  material  interests  (which  are  a  sort  of 
belief)  can  only  be  attained  here  by  sentiments  induced  by 
Catholicism,  and  you  are  not  Catholics  !  I  the  priest  drop 
my  character,  and  reason  with  rationalists. 

"  How  can  you  expect  the  masses  to  become  religious  and 
to  obey  if  they  see  irreligion  and  relaxed  discipline  around 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  221 

them  ?  A  people  united  by  any  faith  will  easily  get  the  better 
of  men  without  belief.  The  law  of  the  interest  of  all,  which 
underlies  patriotism,  is  at  once  annulled  by  the  law  of  indi- 
vidual interest,  which  authorizes  and  implants  selfishness. 
Nothing  is  solid  and  durable  but  that  which  is  natural,  and 
the  natural  basis  of  politics  is  the  family.  The  family  should 
be  the  basis  of  all  institutions.  A  universal  effect  denotes  a 
coextensive  cause.  These  things  that  you  notice  proceed 
from  the  social  principle  itself,  which  has  no  force,  because  it 
is  based  on  independent  opinion,  and  the  right  of  private 
judgment  is  the  forerunner  of  individualism.  There  is  less 
wisdom  in  looking  for  the  blessing  of  security  from  the  intel- 
ligence and  capacity  of  the  majority  than  in  depending  upon 
the  intelligence  of  institutions  and  the  capacity  of  one  single 
man  for  the  blessing  of  security.  It  is  easier  to  find  wisdom 
in  one  man  than  in  a  whole  nation.  The  peoples  have  but  a 
blind  heart  to  guide  them ;  they  feel,  but  they  do  not  see. 
A  government  must  see,  and  must  not  be  swayed  by  senti- 
ments. There  is  therefore  an  evident  contradiction  between 
the  first  impulses  of  the  masses  and  the  action  of  authority 
which  must  direct  their  energy  and  give  it  unity.  To  find  a 
great  prince  is  a  great  chance  (to  use  your  language),  but  to 
trust  your  destinies  to  any  assembly  of  men,  even  if  they  are 
honest,  is  madness. 

"France  is  mad  at  this  moment  !  Alas  !  you  are  as  thor- 
oughly convinced  of  this  as  I.  If  all  men  who  really  be- 
lieve what  they  say,  as  you  do,  would  set  the  example  in 
their  own  circle ;  if  every  intelligent  thinker  would  set  his 
hand  to  raising  once  more  the  altars  of  the  great  spiritual 
republic,  of  the  one  Church  which  has  directed  humanity, 
we  might  see  once  more  in  France  the  miracles  wrought  there 
by  our  fathers." 

"  What  would  you  have,  M.  le  Cure?  "  said  Gerard,  "  if  one 
must  speak  to  you  as  in  the  confessional — I  look  on  faith  as  a 
lie  which  you  consciously  tell  yourself,  on  hope  as  a  lie  about 


228  THE    COUNTRY  PARSON. 

the  future,  and  on  this  charity  of  yours  as  a  child's  trick  ; 
one  is  a  good  boy,  for  the  sake  of  the  jam." 

1  'And  yet,  monsieur,  when  hope  rocks  us  we  sleep  well," 
said  Mme.  Graslin. 

Roubaud,  who  was  about  to  speak,  supported  by  a  glance 
from  Grossetdte  and  the  cure,  stopped  short,  however,  at  the 
words. 

"Is  it  any  fault  of  ours,"  said  Clousier,  "if  Jesus  Christ 
had  not  time  to  formulate  a  system  of  governmenUin  ac- 
cordance with  His  teaching,  as  Moses  did  and  Confucius — 
the  two  greatest  legislators  whom  the  world  has  seen,  for 
the  Jews  and  the  Chinese  still  maintain  their  national  exist- 
ence, though  the  first  are  scattered  all  over  the  earth,  and  the 
second  an  isolated  people  ?  " 

"  Ah  !  you  are  giving  me  a  task  indeed,"  said  the  cure 
candidly,  "but  I  shall  triumph,  I  shall  convert  all  of  you. 
You  are  much  nearer  the  faith  than  you  think.  Truth  lurks 
beneath  the  lie;  come  forward  but  a  step,  and  you  re- 
turn !  " 

And  with  this  cry  from  the  cure  the  conversation  took  a 
fresh  direction. 

The  next  morning  before  M.  Grossetgte  went,  he  promised 
to  take  an  active  share  in  Veronique's  schemes  so  soon  as  they 
should  be  judged  practicable.  Mme.  Graslin  and  Gerard  rode 
beside  his  traveling  carriage  as  far  as  the  point  where  the  cross- 
road joined  the  high-road  from  Bordeaux  to  Lyons.  Gerard 
was  so  eager  to  see  the  place,  and  Veronique  so  anxious  to 
show  it  to  him,  that  this  ride  had  been  planned  overnight. 
After  they  took  leave  of  the  kind  old  man,  they  galloped  down 
into  the  great  plain  and  skirted  the  hillsides  that  lay  between 
the  chateau  and  the  Living  Rock.  The  surveyor  recognized 
the  rock  embankment  which  Farrabesche  had  pointed  out ;  it 
stood  up  like  the  lowest  course  of  masonry  under  the  founda- 
tions of  the  hills,  in  such  a  manner  that  when  the  bed  of  this 
indestructible  canal  of  nature's  making  should  be  cleared  out, 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTAGNAC.  229 

and  the  water-courses  regulated  so  as  not  to  choke  it,  irrigation 
would  actually  be  facilitated  by  that  long  channel  which  lay 
about  ten  feet  above  the  surface  of  the  plain.  The  first  thing 
to  be  done  was  to  estimate  the  volume  of  water  in  the  Gabou, 
and  to  make  certain  that  the  sides  of  the  valley  could  hold  it ; 
no  decision  could  be  made  till  this  was  known. 

Veronique  gave  a  horse  to  Farrabesche,  who  was  to  accom- 
pany Gerard  and  acquaint  him  with  the  least  details  which  he 
himself  had  observed.  After  some  days  of  consideration 
Gerard  thought  the  base  of  either  parallel  chains  of  hill  solid 
enough  (albeit  of  different  material)  to  hold  the  water. 

In  the  January  of  the  following  year,  a  wet  season,  Gerard 
calculated  the  probable  amount  of  water  discharged  by  the 
Gabou,  and  found  that,  when  the  three  water-courses  had  been 
diverted  into  the  torrent,  the  total  amount  would  be  sufficient 
to  water  an  area  three  times  as  great  as  the  plain  of  Montegnac. 
The  dams  across  the  Gabou,  the  masonry  and  engineering 
works  needed  to  bring  the  water-supply  of  the  three  little 
valleys  into  the  plain,  should  not  cost  more  than  sixty  thou- 
sand francs ;  for  the  surveyor  discovered  a  quantity  of  chalky 
deposit  on  the  common,  so  that  lime  would  be  cheap,  and  the 
forest  being  so  near  at  hand,  stone  and  timber  would  cost 
nothing  even  for  transport.  All  the  preparations  could  be 
made  before  the  Gabou  ran  dry,  so  that  when  the  important 
work  should  be  begun  it  should  quickly  be  finished.  But  the 
plain  was  another  matter.  Gerard  considered  that  there  the 
first  preparation  would  cost  at  least  two  hundred  thousand 
francs,  sowing  and  planting  apart. 

The  plain  was  to  be  divided  into  four  squares  of  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  acres  each.  There  was  no  question  of  breaking 
up  the  waste ;  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  remove  the  largest 
flints.  Navvies  would  be  employed  to  dig  a  great  number  of 
trenches  and  to  line  the  channels  with  stone  to  keep  the  water 
in,  for  the  water  must  be  made  to  flow  or  to  stand  as  required. 
4U   this  work  called  for   active,   devoted,   and   painstaking 


230  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

workers.  Chance  so  ordered  it  that  the  plain  was  a  straight* 
forward  piece  of  work,  a  level  stretch,  and  the  water  with  a 
ten-foot  fall  could  be  distributed  at  will.  There  was  nothing 
to  prevent  the  finest  results  in  farming  the  land  ;  here  there 
might  be  just  such  a  splendid  green  carpet  as  in  North  Italy, 
a  source  of  wealth  and  of  pride  to  Lombardy.  Gerard  sent 
to  his  late  district  for  an  old  and  experienced  foreman,  Fres- 
quin  by  name. 

Mme.  Graslin,  therefore,  wrote  to  ask  Grossetete  to  negotiate 
for  her  a  loan  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs  on  the 
security  of  her  government  stock ;  the  interest  of  six  years, 
Gerard  calculated,  should  pay  off  the  debt,  capital  and  in- 
terest. The  loan  was  concluded  in  the  course  of  the  month 
of  March  ;  and  by  that  time  Gerard,  with  Fresquin's  assist- 
ance, had  finished  all  the  preliminary  operations,  leveling,  bor- 
ing, observations,  and  estimates.  The  news  of  the  great  scheme 
had  spread  through  the  country  and  roused  the  poor  people; 
and  the  indefatigable  Farrabesche,  Colorat,  Clousier,  Roubaud, 
and  the  Mayor  of  Montegnac,  all  those,  in  fact,  who  were 
interested  in  the  enterprise  for  its  own  sake  or  for  Mme. 
Graslin's,  chose  the  workers  or  gave  the  names  of  the  poor 
who  deserved  to  be  employed. 

Gerard  bought  partly  for  M.  Grossetete,  partly  on  his  own 
account,  some  thousand  acres  of  land  on  the  other  side  of  the 
road  through  Montegnac.  Fresquin,  his  foreman,  also  took 
five  hundred  acres,  and  sent  for  his  wife  and  children. 

In  the  early  days  of  April,  1833,  M.  Grossetete  came  to 
Montegnac  to  see  the  land  purchased  for  him  by  Gerard ;  but 
the  principal  motive  of  his  journey  was  the  arrival  of  Catherine 
Curieux.  She  had  come  by  the  diligence  from  Paris  to 
Limoges,  and  Mme.  Graslin  was  expecting  her.  Grossetete 
found  Mme.  Graslin  about  to  start  for  the  church.  M.  Bonnet 
was  to  say  a  mass  to  ask  the  blessing  of  heaven  on  the  work 
about  to  begin.  All  the  men,  women,  and  children  were 
present. 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  231 

M.  Grossetete  brought  forward  a  woman  of  thirty  or  there- 
abouts, who  looked  weak  and  out  of  health.  "  Here  is  your 
protege,"  he  said,  addressing  Veronique. 

"  Are  you  Catherine  Curieux?"  Mme.  Graslin  asked. 
"  Yes,  madame." 

For  a  moment  Veronique  looked  at  her ;  Catherine  was 
rather  tall,  shapely,  and  pale  ;  the  exceeding  sweetness  of  her 
features  was  not  belied  by  the  beautiful  soft  gray  eyes.  In  the 
shape  of  her  face  and  the  outlines  of  her  forehead  there  was  a 
nobleness,  a  sort  of  grave  and  simple  majesty,  sometimes  seen 
in  very  young  girls'  faces  in  the  country,  a  kind  of  flower  of 
beauty,  which  field-work,  and  the  constant  wear  of  household 
cares,  and  sunburn,  and  neglect  of  appearance,  wither  with 
alarming  rapidity.  From  her  attitude  as  she  stood  it  was 
easy  to  discern  that  she  would  move  with  the  ease  of  a 
daughter  of  the  fields  and  something  of  an  added  grace,  un- 
consciously learned  in  Paris.  If  Catherine  had  never  left  the 
Correze,  she  would  no  doubt  have  been  by  this  time  a  wrinkled 
and  withered  woman,  the  bright  tints  in  her  face  would  have 
grown  hard ;  but  Paris,  which  had  toned  down  the  high  color, 
had  preserved  her  beauty;  and  ill-health,  weariness,  and  sor- 
row had  given  to  her  the  mysterious  gifts  of  melancholy  and 
of  that  inner  life  of  thought  denied  to  poor  toilers  in  the  field 
who  lead  an  almost  animal  existence.  Her  dress  likewise 
marked  a  distinction  between  her  and  the  peasants ;  for  it 
abundantly  displayed  the  Parisian  taste  which  even  the  least 
coquettish  women  are  so  quick  to  acquire.  Catherine  Curieux, 
not  knowing  what  might  await  her,  and  unable  to  judge 
the  lady  in  whose  presence  she  stood,  seemed  somewhat 
embarrassed. 

"Do  you  still  love  Farrabesche  ? "  asked  Mme.  Graslin, 
when  Grossetete  left  the  two  women  together  for  a  moment. 
"Yes,  madame,"  she  answered,  flushing  red. 
"But  if  you  sent  him  a  thousand  francs  while  he  was  in 
prison,  why  did  you  not  come  to  him  when  he  came  out  ? 


232  THE    COUNTRY  PARSON, 

Do  you  feel  any  repugnance  for  him  ?  Speak  to  me  as  you 
would  to  your  own  mother.  Were  you  afraid  that  he  had 
gone  utterly  to  the  bad  ?  that  he  cared  for  you  no  longer  ?  " 

"No,  madame  ;  but  I  can  neither  read  nor  write.  I  was 
living  with  a  very  exacting  old  lady ;  she  fell  ill ;  we  sat  up 
with  her  of  a  night,  and  I  had  to  nurse  her.  I  knew  the  time 
was  coming  near  when  Jacques  would  be  out  of  prison,  but  I 
could  not  leave  Paris  until  the  lady  died.  She  left  me  nothing, 
after  all  my  devotion  to  her  and  her  interests.  I  had  made 
myself  ill  with  sitting  up  with  her  and  the  hard  work  of  nurs- 
ing, and  I  wanted  to  get  well  again  before  I  came  back.  I 
spent  all  my  savings,  and  then  I  made  up  my  mind  to  go  into 
the  Hopital  Saint-Louis,  and  have  just  been  discharged  as 
cured." 

Mme.  Graslin  was  touched  by  an  explanation  so  simple. 

"Well,  but,  my  dear,"  she  said,  "tell  me  why  you  left 
your  people  so  suddenly  ;  what  made  you  leave  your  child  ? 
why  did  you  not  send  them  news  of  you,  or  get  some  one  to 
write ' ' 

For  all  answer,  Catherine  wept. 

"Madame,"  she  said  at  last,  reassured  by  the  pressure  of 
Veronique's  hand,  "I  daresay  I  was  wrong,  but  it  was  more 
than  I  could  do  to  stop  in  the  place.  It  was  not  that  I  felt 
I  had  done  wrong ;  it  was  the  rest  of  them  ;  I  was  afraid 
of  their  gossip  and  talk.  So  long  as  Jacques  was  here  in 
danger,  he  could  not  do  without  me  ;  but  when  he  was  gone, 
I  felt  as  if  I  could  not  stop.  There  was  I,  a  girl  with  a  child 
and  no  husband  !  The  lowest  creature  would  have  been  better 
than  I.  If  I  had  heard  them  say  the  least  word  about  Ben- 
jamin or  his  father,  I  do  not  know  what  I  should  have  done. 
I  should  have  killed  myself  perhaps  or  gone  out  of  my  mind. 
My  own  father  or  mother  might  have  said  something  hasty  in 
a  moment  of  anger.  Meek  as  I  am,  I  am  too  irritable  to 
bear  hasty  words  or  insult.  I  have  been  well  punished  ;  I 
could  not  see  my  child,  and  never  a  day  passed  but  I  thought 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  233 

of  him  !  I  wanted  to  be  forgotten,  and  forgotten  I  am. 
Nobody  has  given  me  a  thought.  They  thought  I  was  dead, 
and  yet  many  and  many  a  time  I  felt  I  could  like  to  leave 
everything  to  have  one  day  here  and  see  my  little  boy " 

"Your  little  boy — see,  Catherine,  here  he  is!"  replied 
Madame  Graslin. 

Catherine  looked  up  and  saw  Benjamin,  and  something  like 
a  feverish  shiver  ran  through  her. 

"Benjamin,"  said  Mme.  Graslin,  "come  and  kiss  your 
mother." 

"My  mother?"  cried  Benjamin  in  amazement.  He  flung 
his  arms  round  Catherine's  neck,  and  she  clasped  him  to  her 
with  wild  energy.  But  the  boy  escaped,  and  ran  away  crying, 
"I  will  find  him!" 

Mme.  Graslin,  seeing  that  Catherine's  strength  was  failing, 
made  her  sit  down  ;  and  as  she  did  so  her  eyes  met  M. 
Bonnet's  look,  her  color  rose,  for  in  that  keen  glance  her 
confessor  read  her  heart.     She  spoke  tremulously. 

"I  hope,  M.  le  Cure,"  she  said,  "that  you  will  marry 
Catherine  and  Farrabesche  at  once.  Do  you  not  remember 
M.  Bonnet,  my  child  ?  He  will  tell  you  that  Farrabesche  has 
behaved  himself  like  an  honest  man  since  he  came  back. 
Every  one  in  the  countryside  respects  him  ;  if  there  is  a  place 
in  the  world  where  you  may  live  happily  with  the  good  opinion 
of  every  one  about  you,  it  is  here  in  Montegnac,  With  God's 
will,  you  will  make  your  fortune  here,  for  you  shall  be  my 
tenants.     Farrabesche  has  all  his  citizen's  rights  again." 

"This  is  all  true,  my  daughter,"  said  the  cure. 

As  he  spoke,  Farrabesche  came  in,  led  by  his  eager  son. 
Face  to  face  with  Catherine  in  Mme.  Graslin's  presence,  his 
face  grew  white,  and  he  was  mute.  He  saw  how  active  the 
kindness  of  the  one  had  been  for  him,  and  guessed  all  that 
the  other  had  suffered  in  her  enforced  absence.  Veronique 
turned  to  go  with  M.  Bonnet,  and  the  cure  for  his  part  wished 
to  take  Veronique  aside.     As  soon  as  they  were  out  of  hearing, 


234  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Veronique's  confessor  looked  full  at  her  and  saw  her  color 
rise ;  she  lowered  her  eyes  like  a  guilty  creature. 

"You  are  degrading  charity,"  he  said  severely. 

"  And  how?  "  she  asked,  raising  her  head. 

"Charity,"  said  M.  Bonnet,  "is  a  passion  as  far  greater 
than  love,  as  humanity,  madame,  is  greater  than  one  human 
creature.  All  this  is  not  the  spontaneous  work  of  disinter- 
ested virtue.  You  are  falling  from  the  grandeur  of  the  service 
of  man  to  the  service  of  a  single  creature."  In  your  kindness 
to  Catherine  and  Farrabesche  there  is  an  alloy  of  memories 
and  after-thoughts  which  spoils  it  in  the  sight  of  God.  Pluck 
out  the  rest  of  the  dart  of  the  spirit  of  evil  from  your  heart. 
Do  not  spoil  the  value  of  your  good  deeds  in  this  way.  Will 
you  ever  attain  at  last  to  that  holy  ignorance  of  the  good 
that  you  do,  which  is  the  supreme  grace  of  man's  actions?  " 

Mme.  Graslin  turned  away  to  dry  her  eyes.  Her  tears  told 
the  cure  that  his  words  had  reached  and  probed  some  unhealed 
wound  in  her  heart.  Farrabesche,  Catherine,  and  Benjamin 
came  to  thank  their  benefactress,  but  she  made  a  sign  to  them 
to  go  away  and  leave  her  with  M.  Bonnet. 

"You  see  how  I  have  hurt  them,"  she  said,  bidding  him 
see  their  disappointed  faces.  And  the  tender-hearted  cure 
beckoned  to  them  to  come  back. 

"You  must  be  completely  happy,"  she  said.  "Here  is  the 
patent  which  gives  you  back  all  your  rights  as  a  citizen,  and 
exempts  you  from  the  old  humiliating  formalities,"  she  added, 
holding  out  to  Farrabesche  a  paper  which  she  had  kept. 
Farrabesche  kissed  Veronique's  hand.  There  was  an  expres- 
sion of  submissive  affection  and  quiet  devotion  in  his  eyes, 
the  devotion  which  nothing  could  change,  the  fidelity  of  a 
dog  for  his  master. 

"  If  Jacques  has  suffered  much,  madame,  I  hope  that  it  will 
be  possible  for  me  to  make  up  to  him  in  happiness  for  the 
trouble  he  has  been  through,"  said  Catherine;  "for  whatever 
he  may  have  done,  he  is  not  bad." 


MADAME    GRASLIN  A  T  MONTEGNAC.  235 

Mme.  Graslin  turned  away  her  head.  The  sight  of  their 
happiness  seemed  to  crush  her.  M.  Bonnet  left  her  to  go  to 
the  church,  and  she  dragged  herself  thither  on  M.  Grossetete's 
arm. 

After  breakfast,  every  one  went  to  see  the  work  begun.  All 
the  old  people  of  Montegnac  were  likewise  present.  Veron- 
ique  stood  between  M.  Grosset6te  and  M.  Bonnet  on  the  top 
of  the  steep  slope  which  the  new  road  ascended,  whence  they 
could  see  the  alignment  of  the  four  new  roads,  which  served 
as  a  deposit  for  the  stones  taken  off  the  land.  Five  navvies 
were  clearing  a  space  of  eighteen  feet  (the  width  of  each  road), 
and  throwing  up  a  sort  of  embankment  of  good  soil  as  they 
worked.  Four  men  on  either  side  were  engaged  in  making  a 
ditch,  and  these  also  made  a  bank  of  fertile  earth  along  the 
edge  of  the  field.  Behind  them  came  two  men,  who  dug 
holes  at  intervals,  and  planted  trees.  In  each  division,  thirty 
laborers  (chosen  from  among  the  poor),  twenty  women,  and 
forty  girls  and  children,  eighty-six  workers  in  all,  were  busy 
piling  up  the  stones  which  the  workmen  riddled  out  along  the 
bank  so  as  to  measure  the  quantity  produced  by  each  group. 
In  this  way  all  went  abreast,  and  with  such  picked  and  enthu- 
siastic workers  rapid  progress  was  being  made.  Grosset£te 
promised  to  send  some  trees,  and  to  ask  for  more,  among 
Mme.  Graslin's  friends.  It  was  evident  that  there  would  not 
be  enough  in  the  nursery  plantations  at  the  chateau  to  supply 
such  a  demand. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  day,  which  was  to  finish  with  a 
great  dinner  at  the  chateau,  Farrabesche  begged  to  speak  with 
Mme.  Graslin  for  a  moment.     Catherine  came  with  him. 

"Madame,"  he  said,  "you  were  so  kind  as  to  promise  me 
the  home  farm.  You  meant  to  help  me  to  a  fortune  when 
you  granted  me  such  a  favor,  but  I  have  come  round  to 
Catherine's  ideas  about  our  future.  If  I  did  well  there,  there 
would  be  jealousy;  a  word  is  soon  said;  I  might  find  things 
unpleasant,  I  am  afraid,  and,  besides,  Catherine  would  never 


236  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

feel  comfortable;  it  would  be  better  for  us  to  keep  to  ourselves, 
in  fact.  So  I  have  come  just  to  ask  you  if  you  will  give  us  the 
land  about  the  mouth  of  the  Gabou,  near  the  common,  to 
farm  instead,  and  a  little  bit  of  the  wood  yonder  under  the 
Living  Rock.  You  will  have  a  lot  of  workmen  thereabouts 
in  July,  and  it  would  be  easy  then  to  build  a  farmhouse  on  a 
knoll  in  a  good  situation.  We  should  be  very  happy.  I 
would  send  for  Guepin,  poor  fellow,  when  he  comes  out  of 
prison;  he  would  work  like  a  horse,  and,  it  is  likely  I  might 
find  a  wife  for  him.  My  man  is  no  do-nothing.  No  one  will 
come  up  there  to  stare  at  us;  we  will  colonize  that  bit  of  land, 
and  it  will  be  my  great  ambition  to  make  a  famous  farm  for 
you  there.  Besides,  I  have  come  to  suggest  a  tenant  for 
your  great  farm — a  cousin  of  Catherine's,  who  has  a  little 
money  of  his  own ;  he  will  be  better  able  than  I  to  look  after 
such  a  big  concern  as  that.  In  five  years'  time,  please  God, 
you  will  have  five  or  six  thousand  head  of  cattle  or  horses 
down  there  in  the  plain  that  they  are  breaking  up,  and  it  will 
really  take  a  good  head  to  look  after  it  all." 

Mme.  Graslin  recognized  the  good  sense  of  Farrabesche's 
request,  and  granted  it. 

As  soon  as  a  beginning  was  made  in  the  plain,  Mme. 
Graslin  fell  into  the  even  ways  of  a  country  life.  She  went 
to  mass  in  the  morning,  watched  over  the  education  of  the 
son  whom  she  idolized,  and  went  to  see  her  workmen.  After 
dinner  she  was  at  home  to  her  friends  in  the  little  drawing- 
room  on  the  first  floor  of  the  centre  tower.  She  taught  Rou- 
baud,  Clousier,  and  the  cure  whist — Gerard  knew  the  game 
already — and  when  the  party  broke  up  towards  nine  o'clock, 
every  one  went  home.  The  only  events  in  the  pleasant  life 
were  the  successes  of  the  different  parts  of  the  great  enterprise. 

June  came,  the  bed  of  the  Gabou  was  dry,  Gerard  had 
taken  up  his  quarters  in  the  old  keeper's  cottage ;  for  Farra- 
besche's farmhouse  was  finished  by  this  time,  and  fifty  masons, 
obtained  from  Paris,  were  building  a  wall  across  the  valley 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  237 

from  side  to  side.  The  masonry  was  twenty  feet  thick  at  the 
base,  gradually  sloping  away  to  half  that  thickness  at  the  top, 
and  the  whole  length  of  it  was  embedded  in  twelve  feet  of 
solid  concrete.  On  the  side  of  the  valley  Gerard  added  a 
course  of  concrete  with  a  sloping  surface  twelve  feet  thick  at 
the  base,  and  a  similar  support  on  the  side  nearest  the  com- 
mons, covered  with  leaf-mold  several  feet  deep,  made  a  sub- 
stantial barrier  which  the  flood-water  could  not  break  through, 
In  case  of  a  very  wet  season,  Gerard  contrived  a  channel  at  a 
suitable  height  for  the  overflow.  Everywhere  the  masonry 
was  carried  down  on  the  solid  rock  (granite,  or  tufa),  that  the 
water  might  not  escape  at  the  sides.  By  the  middle  of  August 
the  dam  was  finished.  Meanwhile,  Gerard  also  prepared 
three  channels  in  the  three  principal  valleys,  and  all  of  the 
undertakings  cost  less  than  the  estimate.  In  this  way  the 
farm  by  the  chateau  could  be  put  in  working  order. 

The  irrigation  channels  in  the  plain  under  Fresquin's  super- 
intendence corresponded  with  the  natural  canal  at  the  base  of 
the  hills ;  all  the  water-courses  departed  thence.  The  great 
abundance  of  flints  enabled  him  to  pave  all  the  channels,  and 
sluices  were  constructed  so  that  the  water  might  be  kept  at 
the  required  height  in  them. 

Every  Sunday  after  mass  Veronique  went  down  through  the 
park  with  Gerard  and  the  cure,  the  doctor,  and  the  mayor,  to 
see  how  the  system  of  water-supply  was  working.  The  winter 
of  1 833-1 834  was  very  wet.  The  water  from  the  three 
streams  had  been  turned  into  the  torrent,  and  the  flood  had 
made  the  valley  of  the  Gabou  into  three  lakes,  arranged  of  set 
design  one  above  the  other,  so  as  to  form  a  reserve  for  times 
of  great  drought.  In  places  where  the  valley  widened  out, 
Gerard  had  taken  advantage  of  one  or  two  knolls  to  make  an 
island  here  and  there,  and  to  plant  them  with  different  trees. 
This  vast  engineering  operation  had  completely  altered  the 
appearance  of  the  landscape,  but  it  would  still  be  five  or  six 
years  before  it  would  take  its  true  character. 


238  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"  The  land  was  quite  naked,"  Farrabesche  used  to  say, 
"and  now  madarae  has  clothed  it."  After  all  these  great 
changes,  every  one  spoke  of  Veronique  as  "  madame  "  in  the 
countryside.  When  the  rains  ceased  in  June,  1834,  trial  was 
made  of  the  irrigation  system  in  the  part  of  the  plain  where 
seed  had  been  sown ;  and  the  green  growth  thus  watered  was 
of  the  same  fine  quality  as  in  an  Italian  marcila,  or  a  Swiss 
meadow.  The  method  in  use  on  farms  in  Lombardyhad  been 
employed ;  the  whole  surface  was  kept  evenly  moist,  and  the 
plain  was  as  even  as  a  carpet.  The  nitre  in  the  snow,  dis- 
solved in  the  water,  doubtless  contributed  not  a  little  to  the 
fineness  of  the  grass.  Gerard  hoped  that  the  produce  would 
be  something  like  that  of  Switzerland,  where,  as  is  well 
known,  this  substance  is  an  inexhaustible  source  of  riches. 
The  trees  planted  along  the  roadsides,  drawing  water  sufficient 
from  the  ditches,  made  rapid  progress.  So  it  came  to  pass 
that  in  1838,  five  years  after  Mme.  Graslin  came  to  Montegnac, 
the  wasjje  land,  condemned  as  sterile  by  twenty  genera- 
tions, was  a  green  and  fertile  plain,  the  whole  of  it  under 
cultivation. 

Gerard  had  built  houses  for  five  farms,  besides  the  large 
one  at  the  chateau  ;  Gerard's  farm,  like  Grossetete's  and 
Fresquin's,  received  the  overflow  from  Mme.  Graslin's  estate  ; 
they  were  conducted  on  the  same  methods,  and  laid  out  on 
the  same  lines.  Gerard  built  a  charming  lodge  on  his  own 
property. 

When  all  was  finished,  the  township  of  Montegnac  acted 
on  the  suggestion  of  its  mayor,  who  was  delighted  to  resign 
his  office  to  Gerard,  and  the  surveyor  became  mayor  in  his 
stead. 

In  1840  the  departure  of  the  first  herd  of  fat  cattle  sent 
from  Montegnac  to  the  Paris  markets  was  an  occasion  for  a 
rural  fete.  Cattle  and  horses  were  raised  on  the  farms  in  the 
plain ;  for  when  the  ground  was  cleared,  seven  inches  of 
mold  were  usually  found,  which  were  manured  by  pasturing 


MADAME   GRASLIN  AT  MONT&GNAC.  239 

cattle  on  them,  and  continually  enriched  by  the  leaves  that 
fell  every  autumn  from  trees,  and,  first  and  foremost,  by  the 
melted  snow-water  from  the  reservoirs  in  the  Gabou. 

It  was  in  this  year  that  Mme.  Graslin  decided  that  a  tutor 
must  be  found  for  her  son,  now  eleven  years  old.  She  was 
unwilling  to  part  with  him,  and  yet  desired  to  make  a  well- 
educated  man  of  her  boy.  M.  Bonnet  wrote  to  the  seminary. 
Mme.  Graslin,  on  her  side,  let  fall  a  few  words  concerning 
her  wishes  and  her  difficulty  to  Monseigneur  Dutheil,  recently 
appointed  to  an  archbisopric.  It  was  a  great  and  serious 
matter  to  make  choice  of  a  man  who  must  spend  at  least  nine 
months  out  of  twelve  at  the  chateau.  Gerard  had  offered 
already  to  ground  his  friend  Francis  in  mathematics,  but  it 
was  impossible  to  do  without  a  tutor;  and  this  choice  that 
she  must  make  was  the  more  formidable  to  Mme.  Graslin 
because  she  knew  that  her  health  was  giving  way.  As  the 
value  of  the  land  in  her  beloved  Montegnac  increased,  she 
redoubled  the  secret  austerities  of  her  life. 

Monseigneur  Dutheil,  with  whom  Mme.  Graslin  still  cor- 
responded, found  her  the  man  for  whom  she  wished.  He  sent 
a  schoolmaster  named  Ruffin  from  his  own  diocese.  Ruffin 
was  a  young  man  of  five-and-twenty  with  a  genius  for  private 
teaching ;  he  was  widely  read  ;  in  spite  of  an  excessive  sensi- 
bility, could,  when  necessary,  show  himself  sufficiently  severe 
for  the  education  of  a  child,  nor  was  his  piety  in  any  way 
prejudicial  to  his  knowledge;  finally,  he  was  patient  and 
pleasant-looking. 

"This  is  a  real  gift  which  I  am  sending  you,  my  dear 
daughter,"  so  the  archbishop  wrote;  "the  young  man  is 
worthy  to  be  the  tutor  of  a  prince,  so  I  count  upon  you  to 
secure  his  future,  for  he  will  be  your  son's  spiritual  father." 

M.  Ruffin  was  so  much  liked  by  Mme.  Graslin's  little  circle 
of  faithful  friends  that  his  coming   made  no  change  in  the 


240  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

various  intimacies  of  those  who  grouped  about  their  idol, 
seized  with  a  sort  of  jealousy  on  the  hours  and  moments 
spent  with  her. 

The  year  1843  saw  tne  prosperity  of  Montegnac  increasing 
beyond  all  hopes.  The  farm  on  the  Gabou  rivaled  the  farms 
on  the  plain,  and  the  chateau  led  the  way  in  all  improvements. 
The  five  other  farms,  which  by  the  terms  of  the  lease  paid  an 
increasing  rent,  and  would  each  bring  in  the  sum  of  thirty 
thousand  francs  in  twelve  years'  time,  then  brought  in  sixty 
thousand  francs  a  year  all  told.  The  farmers  were  just  begin- 
ning to  reap  the  benefits  of  their  self-denial  and  Mme.  Graslin's 
sacrifices,  and  could  afford  to  manure  the  meadows  in  the 
plain  where  the  finest  crops  grew  without  fear  of  dry  seasons. 
The  Gabou  farm  paid  its  first  rent  of  four  thousand  francs 
joyously. 

It  was  in  this  year  that  a  man  in  Montegnac  started  a  dili- 
gence between  the  chief  town  in  the  arrondissement  and  Lim- 
oges ;  a  coach  ran  either  way  daily.  M.  Clousier's  nephew 
sold  his  clerkship  and  obtained  permission  to  practice  as  a 
notary,  and  Fresquin  was  appointed  to  be  tax-collector  in  the 
canton.  Then  the  new  notary  built  himself  a  pretty  house  in 
upper  Montegnac,  planted  mulberry  trees  on  his  land,  and 
became  Gerard's  deputy.  And  Gerard  himself,  grown  bold 
with  success,  thought  of  a  plan  which  was  to  bring  Mme. 
Graslin  a  colossal  fortune  ;  for  this  year  she  paid  off  her  loan, 
and  began  to  receive  interest  from  her  investment  in  the  funds. 
This  was  Gerard's  scheme  :  He  would  turn  the  little  river 
into  a  canal  by  diverting  the  abundant  water  of  the  Gabou 
into  it.  This  canal  should  effect  a  junction  with  the  Vienne, 
and  in  this  way  it  would  be  possible  to  exploit  twenty  thou- 
sand acres  of  the  vast  forest  of  Montegnac.  The  woods  were 
admirably  superintended  by  Colorat,  but  hitherto  had  brought 
in  nothing  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  transport.  With 
this  arrangement  it  would  be  possible  to  fell  a  thousand  acres 
every  year  (thus  dividing  the  forest  into  twenty  strips  for  sue- 


MADAME    GRASLIN  AT  MONTEGNAC.  241 

cessive  cuttings),  and  the  valuable  timber  for  building  pur- 
poses could  be  sent  by  water  to  Limoges.  This  had  been 
Graslin's  plan  ;  he  had  scarcely  listened  to  the  cure's  projects 
for  the  plain,  he  was  far  more  interested  in  the  scheme  for 
making  a  canal  of  the  little  river. 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE  TOMB. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  following  year,  in  spite  of  Mme. 
Graslin's  bearing,  her  friends  saw  warning  signs  that  death 
was  near.  To  all  Roubaud's  observations,  as  to  the  utmost 
ingenuity  of  the  most  keen-sighted  questioners,  Veronique 
gave  but  one  answer,  "  She  felt  wonderfully  well."  Yet  that 
spring,  when  she  revisited  forest  and  farms  and  her  rich 
meadows,  it  was  with  a  childlike  joy  that  plainly  spoke  of 
sad  forebodings. 

Gerard  had  been  obliged  to  make  a  low  wall  of  concrete 
from  the  dam  across  the  Gabou  to  the  park  at  Montegnac 
along  the  base  of  the  lower  slope  of  the  hill  of  the  Correze  ; 
this  had  suggested  an  idea  to  him.  He  would  enclose  the 
whole  forest  of  Montegnac,  and  throw  the  park  into  it.  Mme. 
Graslin  put  by  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year  for  this  purpose. 
It  would  take  seven  years  to  complete  the  wall ;  but  when  it 
was  finished,  the  splendid  forest  would  be  exempted  from  the 
dues  claimed  by  the  government  over  unenclosed  woods  and 
lands,  and  the  three  ponds  in  the  Gabou  valley  would  lie 
within  the  circuit  of  the  park.  Each  of  the  ponds,  proudly 
dubbed  "a  lake,"  had  its  island.  This  year,  too,  Gerard, 
in  concert  with  Grossetete,  prepared  a  surprise  for  Mme. 
Graslin's  birthday ;  he  had  built  on  the  second  and  largest 
island  a  little  Chartreuse — a  summer-house,  satisfactorily  rustic 
without  and  perfectly  elegant  within.  The  old  banker  was 
in  the  plot,  so  were  Farrabesche,  Fresquin,  and  Clousier's 
nephew,  and  most  of  the  well-to-do  folk  in  Montegnac.  Gros- 
set&te  sent  the  pretty  furniture.  The  bell  tower,  copied  from 
the  tower  of  Vevay,  produced  a  charming  effect  in  the  land- 
scape. Six  boats  (two  for  each  lake)  had  been  secretly  built, 
(242) 


VE  RON  I  QUE   LAID   IN   THE    TOMB.  243 

rigged,  and  painted  during  the  winter  by  Farrabesche  and 
Guepin,  with  some  help  from  the  village  carpenter  at  Mon- 
tegnac. 

So  one  morning  in  the  middle  of  May,  after  Mme.  Graslin's 
friends  had  breakfasted  with  her,  they  led  her  out  into  the 
park,  which  Gerard  had  managed  for  the  last  five  years  as 
architect  and  naturalist.  It  had  been  admirably  laid  out, 
sloping  down  towards  the  pleasant  meadows  in  the  Gabou 
valley,  where  below,  on  the  first  lake,  two  boats  were  in  readi- 
ness for  them.  The  meadowland,  watered  by  several  clear 
streams,  had  been  taken  in  at  the  base  of  the  great  amphi- 
theatre at  the  head  of  the  Gabou  valley.  The  woods  round 
about  them  had  been  carefully  thinned  and  disposed  with  a 
view  to  the  effect ;  here  the  shapeliest  masses  of  trees,  there 
a  charming  inlet  of  meadow ;  there  was  an  air  of  loneliness 
about  the  forest-surrounded  place  which  soothed  the  soul. 

On  a  bit  of  rising  ground  by  the  lake  Gerard  had  carefully 
reproduced  the  chalet  which  all  travelers  see  and  admire  on 
the  road  to  Brieg,  through  the  Rhone  valley.  This  was  to  be 
the  chateau,  dairy,  and  cow-shed.  From  the  balcony  there 
was  a  view  over  this  landscape  created  by  the  engineer's  art, 
a  view  comparable,  since  the  lakes  had  been  made,  to  the 
loveliest  Swiss  scenery. 

It  was  a  glorious  day.  Not  a  cloud  in  the  blue  sky,  and  on 
the  earth  beneath,  the  myriad  gracious  chance  effects  that  the 
fair  May  month  can  give.  Light  wreaths  of  mist,  risen  from 
the  lake,  still  hung  like  a  thin  smoke  about  the  trees  by  the 
water's  edge — willows  and  weeping  willows,  ash  and  alder 
and  abeles,  Lombard  and  Canadian  poplars,  white  and  pink 
hawthorn,  birch  and  acacia,  had  been  grouped  about  the  lake, 
as  the  nature  of  the  ground  and  the  trees  themselves  (all  finely 
grown  specimens  now  ten  years  old)  suggested.  The  high 
green  wall  of  forest  trees  was  reflected  in  the  sheet  of  water, 
clear  as  a  mirror,  and  serene  as  the  sky ;  their  topmost  crests, 
clearly  outlined  in  that  limpid  atmosphere,  stood  out  in  con- 


244  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

trast  with  the  thicket  below  them,  veiled  in  delicate  green 
undergrowth.  The  lakes,  divided  by  strongly-built  embank- 
ments with  a  causeway  along  them  that  served  as  a  short  cut 
from  side  to  side  of  the  valley,  lay  like  three  mirrors,  each 
with  a  different  reflecting  surface,  the  water  trickling  from 
one  to  another  in  musical  cascades.  And  beyond  this,  from 
the  chalet  you  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  bleak  and  barren  com- 
mon lands,  the  pale  chalky  soil  (seen  from  the  balcony) 
looked  like  a  wide  sea,  and  supplied  a  contrast  with  the  fresh 
greenery  about  the  lake.  Veronique  saw  the  gladness  in  her 
friends'  faces  as  their  hands  were  held  out  to  assist  her  to 
enter  the  larger  boat,  tears  rose  to  her  eyes,  and  they  rowed 
on  in  silence  until  they  reached  the  first  causeway.  Here 
they  landed,  to  embark  again  on  the  second  lake ;  a'nd  Vero- 
nique, looking  up,  saw  the  summer-house  on  the  island,  and 
Grosset£te  and  his  family  sitting  on  a  bench  before  it. 

"They  are  determined  to  make  me  regret  life,  it  seems," 
she  said,  turning  to  the  cure. 

"We  want  to  keep  you  among  us,"  Clousier  said. 

"There  is  no  putting  life  into  the  dead,"  she  answered ; 
but  at  M.  Bonnet's  look  of  rebuke,  she  withdrew  into  herself 
again. 

"Simply  let  me  have  the  charge  of  your  health,"  pleaded 
Roubaud  in  a  gentle  voice ;  "  I  am  sure  that  I  could  preserve 
her  who  is  the  living  glory  of  the  canton,  the  common  bond 
that  unites  the  lives  of  all  our  friends." 

Veronique  bent  her  head,  while  GSrard  rowed  slowly  out 
towards  the  island  in  the  middle  of  the  sheet  of  water,  the 
largest  of  the  three.  The  upper  lake  chanced  to  be  too  full ; 
the  distant  murmur  of  the  weir  seemed  to  find  a  voice  for  the 
lovely  landscape. 

"You  did  well  indeed  to  bring  me  here  to  bid  farewell  to 
this  entrancing  view !  "  she  said,  as  she  saw  the  beauty  of  the 
trees  so  full  of  leaves  that  they  hid  the  bank  on  either 
side. 


V&RONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    10MB.  2-15 

The  only  sign  of  disapprobation  which  Veronique's  friends 
permitted  themselves  was  a  gloomy  silence  ;  and,  at  a  second 
glance  from  M.  Bonnet,  she  sprang  lightly  from  the  boat  with 
an  apparent  gaiety,  which  she  sustained.  Once  more  she  be- 
came the  lady  of  the  manor,  and  so  charming  was  she  that 
the  Grossetdte  family  thought  that  they  saw  in  her  the  beauti- 
ful Mme.  Graslin  of  old  days. 

"Assuredly,  you  may  live  yet,"  her  mother  said  in  Veron- 
ique's ear. 

On  that  pleasant  festival  day,  in  the  midst  of  a  scene  sub- 
limely transformed  by  the  use  of  nature's  own  resources,  how 
should  anything  wound  Veronique  ?  Yet  then  and  there  she 
received  her  death-blow. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  the  party  should  return  home 
towards  nine  o'clock  by  way  of  the  meadows ;  for  the  roads, 
quite  as  fine  as  any  in  England  or  Italy,  were  the  pride  of 
their  engineer.  There  were  flints  in  abundance ;  as  the 
stones  were  taken  off  the  land  they  had  been  piled  in  heaps  by 
the  roadside ;  and  with  such  plenty  of  road-material,  it  was  so 
easy  to  keep  the  ways  in  good  order  that  in  five  years'  time 
they  were  in  a  manner  macadamized.  Carriages  were  waiting 
for  the  party  at  the  lower  end  of  the  valley  nearest  the  plain, 
almost  under  the  Living  Rock.  The  horses  had  all  been 
bred  in  Montegnac.  Their  trial  formed  part  of  the  pro- 
gramme for  the  day;  for  these  were  the  first  that  were  ready 
for  sale,  the  manager  of  the  stud  having  just  sent  ten  of  them 
up  to  the  stables  of  the  chateau.  Four  handsome  animals  in 
light  and  plain  harness  were  to  draw  Mme.  Graslin's  caleche, 
a  present  from  Grossetete. 

After  dinner  the  joyous  company  went  to  take  coffee  on  a 
promontory  where  a  little  wooden  kiosk  had  been  erected,  a 
copy  of  one  on  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorns.  From  this 
point  there  was  a  wide  outlook  over  the  lowest  lake,  stretch- 
ing away  to  the  great  barrier  across  the  Gabou,  now  covered 
thickly  with  a  luxuriant  growth  of  green,  a  charming  spot  for 


246  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

the  eyes  to  rest  upon.  Colorat's  house  and  the  old  cottage, 
now  restored,  were  the  only  buildings  in  the  landscape; 
Colorat's  capacities  were  scarcely  adequate  for  the  difficult 
post  of  head  forester  in  Montegnac,  so  he  had  succeeded  to 
Farrabesche's  office. 

From  this  point  Mme.  Graslin  fancied  that  she  could  see 
Francis  near  Farrabesche's  nursery  of  saplings ;  she  looked 
for  the  child,  and  could  not  find  him,  till  M.  Ruffin  pointed 
him  out  playing  on  the  brink  of  the  lake  with  M.  Grosset&te's 
great-grandchildren.  Veronique  felt  afraid  that  some  acci- 
dent might  happen,  and,  without  listening  to  remonstrances, 
sprang  into  one  of  the  boats,  landed  on  the  causeway,  and 
herself  hurried  away  in  search  of  her  son.  This  little  inci- 
dent broke  up  the  party  on  the  island.  Grossetete,  now  a 
venerable  great-grandfather,  was  the  first  to  suggest  a  walk 
along  the  beautiful  field-path  that  wound  up  and  down  by  the 
side  of  the  lower  lakes. 

Mme.  Graslin  saw  Francis  a  long  way  off.  He  was  with  a 
woman  in  mourning,  who  had  thrown  her  arms  about  him. 
She  seemed  to  be  from  a  foreign  country,  judging  by  her  dress 
and  the  shape  of  her  hat.  Veronique  in  dismay  called  her 
son  to  her. 

"  Who  is  that  woman?  "  she  asked  of  the  other  children  ; 
"and  why  did  Francis  go  away  from  you?" 

"The  lady  called  him  by  his  name,"  said  one  of  the  little 
girls.  Mme.  Sauviat  and  Gerard,  who  were  ahead  of  the 
others,  came  up  at  that  moment.    ' 

"Who  is  that  woman,  dear?"  said  Mme.  Graslin,  turning 
to  Francis. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  he  said,  "  but  no  one  kisses  me  like  that 
except  you  and  grandmamma.  She  was  crying,"  he  added  in 
his  mother's  ear. 

"Shall  I  run  and  fetch  her?"  asked  Gerard. 

"No!"  said  Mme.  Graslin,  with  a  curtness  very  unusual 
with  her. 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE   TOMB.  2A1 

With  kindly  tact,  which  Veronique  appreciated,  Gerard 
took  the  little  ones  with  him  and  went  back  to  meet  the 
others;  so  that  Mme.  Sauviat,  Mme.  Graslin,  and  Francis 
were  left  together. 

"What  did  she  say  to  you?"  asked  Mme.  Sauviat,  ad- 
dressing her  grandson. 

"I  don't  know.     She  did  not  speak  French." 

"  Did  you  not  understand  anything  she  said?"  asked 
VSronique. 

"  Oh,  yes;  one  thing  she  said  over  and  over  again,  that  is 
how  I  can  remember  it — dear  brother  !  she  said." 

Veronique  leaned  on  her  mother's  arm  and  took  her  child's 
hand,  but  she  could  scarcely  walk,  and  her  strength  failed  her. 

"What  is  it? What  has  happened?" everyone 

asked  of  Mme.  Sauviat. 

A  cry  broke  from  the  old  Auvergnate  :  "Oh  !  my  daughter 
is  in  danger ! ' '  she  exclaimed,  in  her  guttural  accent  and 
deep  voice. 

Mme.  Graslin  had  to  be  carried  to  her  carriage.  She  or- 
dered Aline  to  keep  beside  Francis,  and  beckoned  to  Gerard. 

"You  have  been  in  England,  I  believe,"  she  said,  when 
she  had  recovered  herself;  "do  you  understand  English? 
What  do  these  words  mean — dear  brother  ?  ' ' 

"That  is  very  simple,"  said  Gerard,  and  he  explained. 

Veronique  exchanged  glances  with  Aline  and  Mme.  Sauviat ; 
the  two  women  shuddered,  but  controlled  their  feelings. 
Mme.  Graslin  sank  into  a  torpor  from  which  nothing  roused 
her ;  she  did  not  heed  the  gleeful  voices  as  the  carriages 
started,  nor  the  splendor  of  the  sunset  light  on  the  meadows, 
the  even  pace  of  the  horses,  nor  the  laughter  of  the  friends 
who  followed  them  on  horseback  at  a  gallop.  Her  mother 
bade  the  man  drive  faster,  and  her  carriage  was  the  first  to 
reach  the  chateau.  When  the  rest  arrived  they  were  told 
that  Veronique  had  gone  to  her  room,  and  would  see  no 
one, 


248  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"I  am  afraid  that  Mme.  Graslin  must  have  received  a  fatal 
wound,"  Gerard  began,  speaking  to  his  friends. 

1  <  Where? How?  "  asked  they. 

"In  the  heart,"  answered  Gerard. 

Two  days  later  Roubaud  set  out  for  Paris.  He  had  seen 
that  Mme.  Graslin's  life  was  in  danger,  and  to  save  her  he 
had  gone  to  summon  the  first  doctor  in  Paris  to  give  his  opin- 
ion of  the  case.  But  Veronique  had  only  consented  to  see 
Roubaud  to  put  an  end  to  the  importunities  of  Aline  and  her 
mother,  who  begged  her  to  be  more  careful  of  herself;  she 
knew  that  she  was  dying.  She  declined  to  see  M.  Bonnet, 
saying  that  the  time  had  not  yet  come ;  and  although  all  the 
friends  who  had  come  from  Limoges  for  her  birthday  festival 
were  anxious  to  stay  with  her,  she  entreated  them  to  pardon 
her  if  she  could  not  fulfill  the  duties  of  hospitality,  but  she 
needed  the  most  profound  solitude.  So,  after  Roubaud's  sud- 
den departure,  the  guests  left  the  chateau  of  Montegnac  and 
went  back  to  Limoges,  not  so  much  in  disappointment  as  in 
despair,  for  all  who  had  come  with  Grossetete  adored  Veron- 
ique, and  were  utterly  at  a  loss  as  to  the  cause  of  this  mysteri- 
ous disaster. 

One  evening,  two  days  after  Grosseiete's  large  family  party 
had  left  the  chateau,  Aline  brought  a  visitor  to  Mme.  Graslin's 
room.  It  was  Catherine  Farrabesche.  At  first  Catherine 
stood  glued  to  the  spot,  so  astonished  was  she  at  this  sudden 
change  in  her  mistress,  the  features  so  drawn. 

"  Good  God  !  madame,  what  harm  that  poor  girl  has  done  ! 
If  only  we  could  have  known,  Farrabesche  and  I,  we  would 
never  have  taken  her  in.  She  has  just  heard  that  madame  is 
ill,  and  sent  me  to  tell  Mme.  Sauviat  that  she  should  like  to 
speak  to  her." 

"Here!"  cried  Veronique.  "Where  is  she  at  this  mo- 
ment?" 

"My  husband  took  her  over  to  the  chalet." 

"Good,"  said  Mme.   Graslin;   "leave  us,  and  tell  Farra- 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE   TOMB.  249 

besche  to  go.     Tell  the  lady  to  wait,  and  my  mother  will  go 
to  see  her." 

At  nightfall  Veronique,  leaning  on  her  mother's  arm,  crept 
slowly  across  the  park  to  the  chalet.  The  moon  shone  with 
its  most  brilliant  glory,  the  night  air  was  soft ;  the  two  women, 
both  shaken  with  emotion  that  they  could  not  conceal, 
received  in  some  sort  the  encouragement  of  nature.  From 
moment  to  moment  Mme.  Sauviat  stopped  and  made  her 
daughter  rest ;  for  Veronique's  sufferings  were  so  poignant  that 
it  was  nearly  midnight  before  they  reached  the  path  that 
turned  down  through  the  wood  to  the  meadows,  where  the 
chalet  roof  sparkled  like  silver.  The  moonlight  on  the  surface 
of  the  still  water  lent  it  a  pearly  hue.  The  faint  noises  of  the 
night,  which  travel  so  far  in  the  silence,  made  up  a  delicate 
harmony  of  sound. 

Veronique  sat  down  on  the  bench  outside  the  chalet  in  the 
midst  of  the  glorious  spectacle  beneath  the  starry  skies.  The 
murmur  of  two  voices  and  footfalls  on  the  sands  made  by  two 
persons  still  some  distance  away  was  borne  to  her  by  the 
water,  which  transmits  every  sound  in  the  stillness  as  faith- 
fully as  it  reflects  everything  in  its  calm  surface.  There  was 
an  exquisite  quality  in  the  intonation  of  one  of  the  voices,  by 
which  Veronique  recognized  the  cure,  and  with  the  rustle  of 
his  cassock  was  blended  the  light  sound  of  a  silk  dress. 
Evidently  there  was  a  woman. 

"Let  us  go  in,"  she  said  to  her  mother.  Mme.  Sauviat 
and  Veronique  sat  down  on  a  manger  in  the  low,  large  room 
built  for  a  cow-shed. 

"I  am  not  blaming  you  at  all,  my  child,"  the  cure  was 
saying;  "but  you  may  be  the  innocent  cause  of  an  irrepara- 
ble misfortune,  for  she  is  the  life  and  soul  of  this  wide  coun- 
tryside." 

"Oh,  monsieur  !  I  will  go  to-night,"  the  stranger  woman's 
voice  answered  ;  u  but — I  can  say  this  to  you — it  will  be  like 
death  to  me  to  leave  my  country  a  second  time.     If  I  had 


250  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

stayed  a  day  longer  in  that  horrible  New  York  or  in  the  United 
States,  where  there  is  neither  hope  nor  faith  nor  charity,  I 
should  have  died  without  any  illness.  The  air  I  was  breath- 
ing hurt  my  chest,  the  food  did  me  no  good,  I  was  dying 
though  I  looked  full  of  life  and  health.  When  I  stepped  on 
board  the  suffering  ceased ;  I  felt  as  if  I  were  in  France. 
Ah,  monsieur  !  I  have  seen  my  mother  and  my  brother's  wife 
die  of  grief.  And  then  my  grandfather  and  grandmother 
Tascheron  died — died,  dear  M.  Bonnet,  in  spite  of  the  un- 
heard-of prosperity  of  Tascheronville Yes.     Our  father 

began  a  settlement,  a  village  in  Ohio,  and  now  the  village  is 
almost  a  town.  One-third  of  the  land  thereabouts  belongs  to 
our  family,  for  God  has  watched  over  us  all  along,  and  the  farms 
have  done  well,  our  crops  are  magnificent,  and  we  are  rich — 
so  rich  that  we  managed  to  build  a  Catholic  church.  The 
whole  town  is  Catholic ;  we  will  not  allow  any  other  worship, 
and  we  hope  to  convert  all  the  endless  sects  about  us  by  our 
example.  The  true  faith  is  in  a  minority  in  that  dreary, 
mercenary  land  of  the  dollar,  a  land  which  chills  one  to  the 
soul.  Still  I  would  go  back  to  die  there  sooner  than  to  do 
the  least  harm  here  or  give  the  slightest  pain  to  the  mother 
of  our  dear  Francis.  Only  take  me  to  the  parsonage  house 
to-night,  dear  M.  Bonnet,  so  that  I  can  pray  awhile  on  his 
grave;  it  was  just  that  that  drew  me  here,  for  as  I  came  nearer 
and  nearer  the  place  where  he  lies  I  felt  quite  a  different  being. 
No,  I  did  not  believe  I  should  feel  so  happy  here " 

"  Very  well,"  said  the  cure  ;  "come,  let  us  go.  If  at  some 
future  day  you  can  come  back  without  evil  consequences,  I 
will  write  to  tell  you,  Denise ;  but  perhaps  after  this  visit  to 
your  old  home  you  may  feel  able  to  live  yonder  without  suffer- 
ing  

"  Leave  this  country  now  when  it  is  so  beautiful  here  ! 
Just  see  what  Mme.  Graslin  has  made  of  the  Gabou  !  "  she 
added,  pointing  to  the  moonlit  lake.  "And  then  all  this  will 
belong  to  our  dear  Francis " 


vAronique  laid  IN  THE  TOMB.  251 

"You  shall  not  go,  Denise,"  said  Mme.  Graslin,  appear- 
ing in  the  stable  doorway. 

Jean-Francois  Tascheron's  sister  clasped  her  hands  at  the 
sight  of  this  ghost  who  spoke  to  her ;  for  Veronique's  white 
face  in  the  moonlight  looked  unsubstantial  as  a  shadow  against 
the  dark  background  of  the  open  stable-door.  Her  eyes 
glittered  like  two  stars. 

"No,  child,  you  shall  not  leave  the  country  you  have 
traveled  so  far  to  see,  and  you  shall  be  happy  here,  unless 
God  should  refuse  to  second  my  efforts  ;  for  God,  no  doubt, 
has  sent  you  here,  Denise." 

She  took  the  astonished  girl's  hand  in  hers,  and  went  with 
her  down  the  path  towards  the  opposite  shore  of  the  lake. 
Mme.  Sauviat  and  the  cure,  left  alone,  sat  down  on  the  bench. 

"Let  her  have  her  way,"  murmured  Mme.  Sauviat. 

A  few  minutes  later  Veronique  returned  alone;  her  mother 
and  the  cure  brought  her  back  to  the  chateau.  Doubtless  she 
had  thought  of  some  plan  of  action  which  suited  the  mystery, 
for  nobody  saw  Denise,  no  one  knew  that  she  had  come 
back. 

Mme.  Graslin  took  to  her  bed,  nor  did  she  leave  it. 
Every  day  she  grew  worse.  It  seemed  to  vex  her  that  she 
could  not  rise,  for  again  and  again  she  made  vain  efforts  to 
get  up  and  take  a  walk  in  the  park.  One  morning  in  early 
June,  some  days  after  that  night  at  the  chalet,  she  made  a 
violent  effort  and  rose  and  tried  to  dress  herself,  as  if  for  a 
festival.  She  begged  Gerard  to  lend  her  his  arm ;  for  her 
friends  came  daily  for  news  of  her,  and  when  Aline  said  that 
her  mistress  meant  to  go  out  they  all  hurried  up  to  the  chateau. 
Mme.  Graslin  had  summoned  all  her  remaining  strength  to 
spend  it  on  this  last  walk.  She  gained  her  object  by  a 
violent  spasmodic  effort  of  the  will,  inevitably  followed  by  a 
deadly  reaction. 

"Let  us  go  to  the  chalet — and  alone,"  she  said  to  Gerard. 
The  tones  of  her  voice  were  soft,  and  there  was  something 


252  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

like  coquetry  in  her  glance.      "This  is  my  last  escapade,  for. 
I  dreamed  last  night  that  the  doctors  had  come." 

"  Would  you  like  to  see  your  woods  ?  "   asked  Gerard. 

"For  the  last  time.  But,"  she  added,  in  coaxing  tones, 
"  I  have  some  strange  proposals  to  make  to  you." 

Gerard,  by  her  direction,  rowed  her  across  the  second 
lake,  when  she  had  reached  it  on  foot.  He  was  at  a  loss  to 
understand  such  a  journey,  but  she  indicated  the  summer- 
house  as  their  destination,  and  he  plied  his  oars. 

There  was  a  long  pause.  Her  eyes  wandered  over  the  hill- 
sides, the  water,  and  the  sky ;  then  she  spoke. 

"  My  friend,  it  is  a  strange  request  that  I  am  about  to  make 
to  you,  but  I  think  that  you  are  the  man  to  obey  me." 

"  In  everything,"  he  said,  "  sure  as  I  am  that  you  cannot 
will  anything  but  good." 

"I  want  you  to  marry,"  she  said;  "you  will  fulfill  the 
wishes  of  a  dying  woman,  who  is  certain  that  she  is  securing 
your  happiness." 

"I  am  too  ugly !  "  said  Gerard. 

"She  is  pretty,  she  is  young,  she  wants  to  live  in  Mon- 
tegnac ;  and  if  you  marry  her,  you  will  do  something  towards 
making  my  last  moments  easier.  We  need  not  discuss  her 
qualities.  I  tell  you  this,  that  she  is  a  woman  of  a  thousand  ; 
and  as  for  her  charms,  youth,  and  beauty,  the  first  sight  will 
suffice,  we  shall  see  her  in  a  moment  in  the  summer-house. 
On  our  way  back  you  shall  give  me  your  answer,  a  '  Yes '  or 
a  'No/  in  sober  earnest." 

Mme.  Graslin  smiled  as  she  saw  the  oars  move  more  swiftly 
after  this  confidence.  Denise,  who  was  living  out  of  sight  in 
the  island  sanctuary,  saw  Mme.  Graslin,  and  hurried  to  the 
door.  Veronique  and  Gerard  came  in.  In  spite  of  herself, 
the  poor  girl  flushed  as  she  met  the  eyes  that  Gerard  turned 
upon   her ;  Denise's  beauty  was  an  agreeable  surprise  to  him. 

"  La  Curieux  does  not  let  you  want  for  anything,  does 
she?"  asked  Veronique. 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    TOMB.  253 

"Look,  madame,"  said  Denise,  pointing  to  the  breakfast 
table. 

"  This  is  M.  Gerard,  of  whom  I  have  spoken  to  you," 
Veronique  went  on.  "  He  will  be  my  son's  guardian,  and 
when  I  am  dead  you  will  all  live  together  at  the  chateau  until 
Francis  comes  of  age." 

"  Oh,  madame  !  don't  talk  like  that." 

"  Just  look  at  me,  child  !  "  said  Veronique,  and  all  at  once 
she  saw  tears  in  the  girl's  eyes.  "She  comes  from  New 
York,"  she  added,  turning  to  Gerard. 

This  by  way  of  putting  both  on  a  footing  of  acquaintance. 
Gerard  asked  questions  of  Denise,  and  Mme.  Graslin  left 
them  to  chat,  going  to  look  out  over  the  view  of  the  last  lake 
on  the  Gabou.  At  six  o'clock  Gerard  and  Veronique  rowed 
back  to  the  chalet. 

"  Well  ?  "  queried  she,  looking  at  her  friend. 

"  You  have  my  word." 

"  You  maybe  without  prejudices,"  Veronique  began,  "  but 
you  ought  to  know  how  it  was  that  she  was  obliged  to 
leave  the  country,  poor  child,  brought  back  by  a  home-sick 
longing." 

"  A  slip?" 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Veronique,  "or  should  I  introduce  her  to 
you  ?  She  is  the  sister  of  a  workman  who  died  on  the 
scaffold " 

"Oh  !  Tascheron,  who  murdered  old  Pingret " 

"Yes.  She  is  a  murderer's  sister,"  said  Mme.  Graslin, 
with  inexpressible  irony  in  her  voice;  "you  can  take  back 
your  word." 

She  went  no  further.  Gerard  was  compelled  to  carry  her 
to  the  bench  at  the  chalet,  and  for  some  minutes  she  lay  there 
unconscious.  Gerard,  kneeling  beside  her,  said,  as  soon  as 
she  opened  her  eyes — 

"I  will  marry  Denise." 

Mme.   Graslin  made   him   rise,  she   took  his   head   in   her 


254  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

hands,  and  set  a  kiss  on  his  forehead.  Then,  seeing  that  he 
was  astonished  to  be  thus  thanked,  she  grasped  his  hand  and 
said — 

"  You  will  soon  know  the  meaning  of  this  puzzle.  Let  us 
try  to  reach  the  terrace  again,  our  friends  are  there.  It  is 
very  late,  and  I  feel  very  weak,  and  yet  I  should  like  to  bid 
farewell  from  afar  to  this  dear  plain  of  mine." 

The  weather  had  been  intolerably  hot  all  day  ;  and  though 
the  storms,  which  did  so  much  damage  that  year  in  different 
parts  of  Europe  and  in  France  itself,  respected  the  Limousin, 
there  had  been  thunder  along  the  Loire,  and  the  air  began  to 
grow  fresher.  The  sky  was  so  pure  that  the  least  details  on 
the  horizon  were  sharp  and  clear.  What  words  can  describe 
the  delicious  concert  of  sounds,  the  smothered  hum  of  the 
township,  now  alive  with  workers  returning  from  the  fields? 
It  would  need  the  combined  work  of  a  great  landscape 
painter  and  a  painter  of  figures  to  do  justice  to  such  a  picture. 
Is  there  not,  in  fact,  a  subtle  connection  between  the  lassitude 
of  nature  and  the  laborer's  weariness,  an  affinity  of  mood 
hardly  to  be  rendered  ?  In  the  tepid  twilight  of  the  dog 
days,  the  rarefied  air  gives  its  full  significance  to  the  least 
sound  made  by  every  living  thing. 

The  women  sit  chatting  at  their  doors  with  a  bit  of  work 
even  then  in  their  hands,  as  they  wait  for  the  good  man  who, 
probably,  will  bring  the  children  home.  The  smoke  going 
up  from  the  roofs  is  the  sign  of  the  last  meal  of  the  day  and 
the  gayest  for  the  peasants;  after  it  they  will  sleep.  The  stir 
at  that  hour  is  the  expression  of  happy  and  tranquil  thoughts 
in  those  who  have  finished  their  day's  work.  There  is  a  very 
distinct  difference  between  their  evening  and  morning  snatches 
of  song ;  for  in  this  the  village-folk  are  like  the  birds,  the 
last  twitterings  at  night  are  utterly  unlike  their  notes  at  dawn. 
All  nature  joins  in  the  hymn  of  rest  at  the  end  of  the  day,  as 
in  the  hymn  of  gladness  at  sunrise ;  all  things  take  the  softly- 
blended  hues  that  the  sunset  throws  across  the  fields,  tingeing 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    TOMB.  255 

the  dusty  roads  with  mellow  light.  If  any  should  be  bold 
enough  to  deny  the  influences  of  the  fairest  hour  of  the  day, 
the  very  flowers  would  convict  him  of  falsehood,  intoxicating 
him  with  .their  subtlest  scents,  mingled  with  the  tenderest 
sounds  of  insects  the  amorous  faint  twitter  of  birds. 

Thin  films  of  mist  hovered  above  the  "  water-lanes"  that 
furrowed  the  plain  below  the  township.  The  poplars  and 
acacias  and  sumach  trees,  planted  in  equal  numbers  along  the 
roads,  had  grown  so  tall  already  that  they  shaded  it,  and  in  the 
wide  fields  on  either  side  the  large  and  celebrated  herds  of 
cattle  were  scattered  about  in  groups,  some  still  browsing, 
others  chewing  the  cud.  Men,  women,  and  children  were 
busy  getting  in  the  last  of  the  hay,  the  most  picturesque  of 
all  field-work.  The  evening  air,  less  languid  since  the  sudden 
breath  of  coolness  after  the  storms,  brought  the  wholesome 
scents  of  mown  grass  and  swathes  of  hay.  The  least  details 
in  the  beautiful  landscape  stood  out  perfectly  sharp  and  clear. 

There  was  some  fear  for  the  weather.  The  ricks  were  being 
finished  in  all  haste  ;  men  hurried  about  them  with  loaded 
forks,  raked  the  heaps  together,  and  loaded  the  carts.  Out  in 
the  distance  the  scythes  were  still  busy,  the  women  were  turn- 
ing the  long  swathes  that  looked  like  hatched  lines  across  the 
fields  into  dotted  rows  of  haycocks. 

Sounds  of  laughter  came  up  from  the  hay  fields,  the  workers 
frolicked  over  their  work,  the  children  shouted  as  they  buried 
each  other  in  the  heaps.  Every  figure  was  distinct,  the 
women's  petticoats,  pink,  red,  or  blue,  their  kerchiefs,  their 
bare  arms  and  legs,  the  wide-brimmed  straw  hats  of  field- 
workers,  the  men's  shirts,  the  white  trousers  that  nearly  all 
of  them  wore. 

The  last  rays  of  sunlight  fell  like  a  bright  dust  over  the  long 
lines  of  poplar  trees  by  the  channels  which  divided  up  the 
plain  into  fields  of  various  sizes,  and  lingered  caressingly  over 
the  groups  of  men,  women,  and  children,  horses  and  carts  and 
cattle.     The  shepherds  and  herdsmen  began  to  gather  their 


256  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

flocks  together  with  the  sound  of  their  horns.  The  plain 
seemed  so  silent  and  so  full  of  sound,  a  strange  antithesis,  but 
only  strange  to  those  who  do  not  know  the  splendors  of  the 
fields.  Loads  of  green  fodder  came  into  the  township  from 
every  side.  There  was  something  indescribably  somnolent  in 
the  influence  of  the  scene,  and  Veronique,  between  the  cure 
and  Gerard,  uttered  no  word. 

At  last  they  came  to  a  gap  made  by  a  rough  track  that  led 
from  the  houses  ranged  below  the  terrace  to  the  parsonage 
house  and  the  church ;  and,  looking  down  into  Montegnac, 
Gerard  and  M.  Bonnet  saw  the  upturned  faces  of  the  women, 
men,  and  children,  all  looking  at  them.  Doubtless  it  was 
Mme.  Graslin  more  particularly  whom  they  followed  with 
their  eyes.  And  what  affection  and  gratitude  there  were  in 
their  way  of  doing  this  !  With  what  blessings  did  they  not 
greet  Veronique's  appearance  !  With  what  devout  intentness 
they  watched  the  three  benefactors  of  a  whole  countryside  ! 
It  was  as  if  man  added  a  hymn  of  gratitude  to  all  the  songs 
of  evening.  While  Mme.  Graslin  walked  with  her  eyes  set 
on  the  magnificent  distant  expanse  of  green,  her  dearest  crea- 
tion, the  mayor  and  the  cure  watched  the  groups  below. 
There  was  no  mistake  about  their  expression  ;  grief,  melan- 
choly, and  regret,  mingled  with  hope,  were  plainly  visible  in 
them  all.  There  was  not  a  soul  in  Montegnac  but  knew  how 
that  M.  Roubaud  had  gone  to  Paris  to  fetch  some  great  doctors, 
and  that  the  beneficent  lady  of  the  canton  was  nearing  the 
end  of  a  fatal  illness.  On  market-days,  in  every  place  for 
thirty  miles  round,  the  peasants  asked  the  Montegnac  folk, 
ft  How  is  your  mistress?  "  And  so  the  great  thought  of  death 
hovered  over  this  countryside,  amid  the  fair  picture  of  the 
hayfields. 

Far  off  in  the  plain,  more  than  one  mower  sharpening  his 
scythe,  more  than  one  girl  leaning  on  her  rake,  or  farmer 
among  his  stacks  of  hay,  looked  up  and  paused  thoughtfully 
to  watch  Mme.    Graslin,  their  great  lady,  the  pride  of  the 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN   THE    TOMB.  257 

Correze.  They  tried  to  discover  some  hopeful  sign,  or 
watched  her  admiringly,  prompted  by  a  feeling  which  put 
work  out  of  their  minds.  "  She  is  out  of  doors,  so  she  must 
be  better  !  "     The  simple  phrase  was  on  all  lips. 

Mme.  Graslin's  mother  was  sitting  at  the  end  of  the  terrace. 
Veronique  had  placed  a  cast-iron  garden-seat  in  the  corner,  so 
that  she  might  sit  there  and  look  down  into  the  churchyard 
through  the  balustrade.  Mme.  Sauviat  watched  her  daughter 
as  she  walked  along  the  terrace,  and  her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 
She  knew  something  of  the  preternatural  effort  which  Veron- 
ique was  making;  she  knew  that  even  at  that  moment  her 
daughter  was  suffering  fearful  pain,  and  that  it  was  only  a 
heroic  effort  of  will  that  enabled  her  to  stand.  Tears,  almost 
like  tears  of  blood,  found  their  way  down  among  the  sun- 
burned wrinkles  of  a  face  like  parchment,  that  seemed  as  if  it 
could  not  alter  one  crease  for  any  emotion  any  more.  Little 
Graslin,  standing  between  M.  Ruffin's  knees,  cried  for  sym- 
pathy. 

"What  is  the  matter,  child?"  the  tutor  asked  sharply. 

"  Grandmamma  is  crying " 

M.  Ruffin's  eyes  had  been  fixed  on  Mme.  Graslin,  who  was 
coming  towards  them ;  he  looked  at  Mme.  Sauviat ;  the 
Roman  matron's  face,  stony  with  sorrow  and  wet  with  tears, 
gave  him  a  great  shock.  That  dumb  grief  had  invested  the 
old  woman  with  a  certain  grandeur  and  sacredness. 

"Madame,  why  did  you  let  her  go  out?"  asked  the  tutor. 

Veronique  was  coming  nearer.  She  walked  like  a  queen, 
with  admirable  grace  in  her  whole  bearing.  And  Mme. 
Sauviat  knew  that  she  should  outlive  her  daughter,  and  in  the 
cry  of  despair  that  broke  from  her  a  secret  escaped  that  re- 
vealed many  things  which  roused  curiosity. 

"  To  think  of  it !  She  walks  and  wears  a  horrible  hair  shirt 
always  pricking  her  skin  !  " 

The  young  man's  blood  ran  cold  at  her  words ;  he  could 
not  be  insensible  to  the  exquisite  grace  of  Veronique's  move- 
17 


258  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

ments,  and  shuddered  as  he  thought  of  the  cruel,  unrelenting 
mastery  that  the  soul  must  have  gained  over  the  body.  A 
Parisienne  famed  for  her  graceful  figure,  the  ease  of  her  car- 
riage and  bearing,  might  perhaps  have  feared  comparison  with 
Veronique  at  that  moment. 

"  She  has  worn  it  for  thirteen  years,  ever  since  the  child 
was  weaned,"  the  old  woman  said,  pointing  to  young  Graslin. 
"  She  has  worked  miracles  here  ;  and  if  they  but  knew  her  life, 
they  might  put  her  among  the  saints.  Nobody  has  seen  her 
eat  since  she  came  here,  do  you  know  why  ?  Aline  brings  her 
a  bit  of  dry  bread  three  times  a  day  on  a  great  platter  full  of 
ashes,  and  vegetables  cooked  in  water  without  any  salt,  on  a 
red  earthenware  dish  that  they  put  a  dog's  food  in  !  Yes. 
That  is  the  way  she  lives  who  has  given  life  to  the  canton. 
She  says  her  prayers  kneeling  on  the  hem  of  her  cilice.  She 
says  that  if  she  did  not  practice  these  austerities  she  could  not 
wear  the  smiling  face  you  see.  I  am  telling  you  this  "  (and 
the  old  woman's  voice  dropped  lower)  "  for  you  to  tell  it  to  the 
doctor  that  M.  Roubaud  has  gone  to  fetch  from  Paris.  If  he 
will  prevent  my  daughter  from  continuing  these  penances, 
they  might  save  her  yet  (who  knows?),  though  the  hand  of 
death  is  on  her  head.  Look  !  Ah,  I  must  be  very  strong  to 
have  borne  all  these  things  for  fifteen  years." 

The  old  woman  took  her  grandson's  hand,  raised  it,  and 
passed  it  over  her  forehead  and  cheeks  as  if  some  restorative 
balm  communicated  itself  in  the  touch  of  the  little  hand  ;  then 
she  set  a  kiss  upon  it,  a  kiss  full  of  the  love  which  is  the  secret  of 
grandmothers  no  less  than  mothers.  By  this  time  Veronique 
was  only  a  few  paces  distant,  Clousier  was  with  her,  and  the 
cure"  and  Gerard.  Her  face,  lit  up  by  the  setting  sun,  was 
radiant  with  awful  beauty. 

One  thought,  steadfast  amid  many  inward  troubles,  seemed 
to  be  written  in  the  lines  that  furrowed  the  sallow  forehead 
in  long  folds  piled  one  above  the  other,  like  clouds.  The 
outlines  of  her  face,  now  completely  colorless,  entirely  white 


V&RONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    TOMB.  259 

with  the  dead  olive-tinged  whiteness  of  plants  grown  without 
sunlight,  were  thin  but  not  withered,  and  showed  traces  of 
great  physical  suffering  produced  by  mental  anguish.  She 
had  quelled  the  body  through  the  soul,  and  the  soul  through 
the  body.  So  completely  worn  out  was  she  that  she  resem- 
bled her  past  self  only  as  an  old  woman  resembles  her  portrait 
painted  in  girlhood.  The  glowing  expression  of  her  eyes 
spoke  of  the  absolute  domination  of  a  Christian  will  over  a 
body  reduced  to  the  subjection  required  by  religion,  for  in 
this  woman  the  flesh  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  spirit.  As  in 
profane  poetry  Achilles  dragged  the  dead  body  of  Hector, 
victoriously  she  dragged  it  over  the  stormy  ways  of  life ;  and 
thus  for  fifteen  years  she  had  compassed  the  heavenly  Jerusa- 
lem which  she  had  hoped  to  enter,  not  as  a  thief,  but  amid 
triumphant  acclamations.  Never  was  anchorite  amid  the 
parched  and  arid  deserts  of  Africa  more  master  of  his  senses 
than  Veronique  in  her  splendid  chateau  in  a  rich  land  of  soft 
and  luxurious  landscape,  nestling  under  the  mantle  of  the 
great  forest  where  science,  heir  to  Moses'  rod,  had  caused 
plenty  to  spring  forth  and  the  prosperity  and  the  welfare  of  a 
whole  countryside.  Veronique  was  looking  out  over  the 
results  of  twelve  years  of  patience,  on  the  accomplishment  of 
a  task  on  which  a  man  of  ability  might  have  prided  himself; 
but  with  the  gentle  modesty  which  Pontorno's  brush  had 
depicted  in  the  expression  of  his  symbolical  "  Christian 
Chastity  " — with  her  arms  about  the  unicorn.  Her  two  com- 
panions respected  her  silent  mood  when  they  saw  that  she  was 
gazing  over  the  vast  plain,  once  sterile,  and  now  fertile;  the 
devout  lady  of  the  manor  went  with  folded  arms  and  eyes 
fixed  on  the  point  where  the  road  reached  the  horizon. 

Suddenly  she  stopped  when  but  two  paces  away  from  Mme. 
Sauviat,  who  watched  her  as  Christ's  mother  must  have  gazed 
at  her  Son  upon  the  cross.  Veronique  raised  her  hand  and 
pointed  to  the  spot  where  the  road  turned  off  to  Mon- 
tegnac. 


260  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"Do  you  see  that  caleche  and  the  four  post-horses?"  sh^ 
asked,  smiling.  "  That  is  M.  Roubaud.  He  is  coming 
back.  We  shall  soon  know  now  how  many  hours  I  have 
to  live." 

"Hours /"  echoed  Gerard. 

"  Did  I  not  tell  you  that  this  was  my  last  walk?  "  she  said. 
"  Did  I  not  come  to  see  this  beautiful  view  in  all  its  glory  for 
the  last  time?" 

She  indicated  the  fair  meadow  land,  lit  up  by  the  last 
rays  of  the  sun,  and  the  township  below.  All  the  village 
had  come  out  and  stood  in  the  square  in  front  of  the 
church. 

"Ah!"  she  went  on,  "let  me  think  that  there  is  God's 
benediction  in  the  strange  atmospheric  conditions  that  have 
favored  our  hay-harvest.  Storms  all  about  us,  rain  and 
hail  and  thunder  have  laid  waste  pitilessly  and  incessantly, 
but  not  here.  The  people  think  so;  why  should  not  I 
follow  their  example?  I  need  so  much  to  find  some  good 
augury  on  earth  for  that  which  awaits  me  when  my  eyes 
shall  be  closed  !  " 

Her  child  came  to  her,  took  his  mother's  hand,  and  laid  it 
on  his  hair.  The  great  eloquence  of  that  movement  touched 
V£ronique ;  with  preternatural  strength  she  caught  him  up, 
held  him  on  her  left  arm  a  moment  as  she  used  to  hold  him 
as  a  child  at  the  breast,  and  kissed  him.  M  Do  you  see  this 
land,  my  boy?"  she  said.  "You  must  go  on  with  your 
mother's  work  when  you  are  a  man." 

Then  the  cure  spoke  sadly  :  "  There  are  a  very  few  strong 
and  privileged  natures  who  are  permitted  to  see  death  face  to 
face,  to  fight  a  long  duel  with  him,  and  to  show  courage  and 
skill  that  strike  others  with  admiration ;  this  is  the  dreadful 
spectacle  that  you  give  us,  madame ;  but,  perhaps,  you  are 
somewhat  wanting  in  pity  for  us.  Leave  us  at  least  the  hope 
that  you  are  mistaken,  that  God  will  permit  you  to  finish  all 
that  you  have  begun." 


VERONIQUE   LAID  IN   THE    TOMB.  261 

"I  have  done  nothing  save  through  you,  my  friend,"  said 
she.  "  It  was  in  my  power  to  be  useful  to  you  ;  it  is  so  no 
longer.  Everything  about  us  is  green  ;  there  is  no  desolate 
waste  here  now,  save  my  own  heart.  You  know  it,  dear  cure, 
you  know  that  I  can  only  find  peace  and   pardon  there " 

She  held  out  her  hand  over  the  churchyard.  She  had  never 
said  so  much  since  the  day  when  she  first  came  to  Montegnac 
and  fainted  away  on  that  very  spot.  The  cure  gazed  at  his 
penitent;  and,  accustomed  as  he  had  been  for  long  to  read 
her  thoughts,  he  knew  from  those  simple  words  that  he  had 
won  a  fresh  victory.  It  must  have  cost  Veronique  a  terrible 
effort  over  herself  to  break  a  twelve  years'  silence  with  such 
pregnant  words ;  and  the  cure  clasped  his  hands  with  the 
devout  fervor  familiar  to  him,  and  looked  with  deep  religious 
emotion  on  the  family  group  about  him.  All  their  secrets 
had  passed  through  his  heart. 

Gerard  looked  bewildered  ;  the  words  "  peace  and  pardon  " 
seemed  to  sound  strangely  in  his  ears  ;  M.  Ruffin's  eyes  were 
fixed  in  a  sort  of  dull  amazement  on  Mme.  Graslin.  And 
meanwhile  the  caleche  sped  rapidly  along  the  road,  threading 
its  way  from  tree  to  tree. 

"There  are  five  of  them  !  "  said  the  cur£,  who  could  see 
and  count  the  travelers. 

"  Five  !  "  exclaimed  M.  Gerard.  "  Will  five  of  them  know 
more  than  two?  " 

"  Ah  !  "  murmured  Mme.  Graslin,  who  leaned  on  the  cure's 
arm,  "  there  is  the  public  prosecutor.  "  What  does  he  come 
to  do  here  ?  " 

"  And  papa  Grossetete  too  !  "  cried  Francis. 

"  Madame,  take  courage,  be  worthy  of  yourself,"  said  the 
cure.  He  drew  Mme.  Graslin,  who  was  leaning  heavily  on 
him,  a  few  paces  aside. 

"What  does  he  want?"  she  said  for  all  answer,  and  she 
went  to  lean  against  the  balustrade.  "Mother!"  she  ex- 
claimed, despairingly. 


262  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Mme.  Sauviat  sprang  forward  with  an  activity  that  belied 
her  years. 

"  I  shall  see  him  again "  said  Veronique. 

"If  he  is  coming  with  M.  Grossetete,"  said  the  cure,  "it 
can  only  be  with  good  intentions,  of  course." 

"Ah  !  sir,  my  daughter  is  dying  !  "  cried  Mme.  Sauviat, 
seeing  the  change  that  passed  over  Mme.  Graslin's  face  at  the 
words.  "How  will  she  endure  such  cruel  agitations?  M. 
Grossetete  has  always  prevented  that  man  from  coming  to  see 
Veronique " 

Veronique' s  face  flamect. 

"So  you  hate  him,  do  you?"  the  Abb6  Bonnet  asked, 
turning  to  his  penitent. 

"  She  left  Limoges  lest  all  Limoges  should  know  her  secrets," 
said  Mme.  Sauviat,  terrified  by  that  sudden  change  wrought 
in  Mme.  Graslin's  drawn  features. 

"  Do  you  not  see  that  his  presence  will  poison  the  hours 
that  remain  to  me,  when  heaven  alone  should  be  in  my 
thoughts?  He  is  nailing  me  down  to  earth  !  "  cried  Veron- 
ique. 

The  cur£  took  Mme.  Graslin's  arm  once  more,  and  con- 
strained her  to  walk  a  few  paces;  when  they  were  alone,  he 
looked  full  at  her  with  one  of  those  angelic  looks  which  calm 
the  most  violent  tumult  in  the  soul. 

"If  it  is  thus,"  he  said,  "I,  as  your  confessor,  bid  you  to 
receive  him,  to  be  kind  and  gracious  to  him,  to  lay  aside  this 
garment  of  anger,  and  to  forgive  him  as  God  will  forgive  you. 
Can  there  be  a  taint  of  passion  in  the  soul  that  I  deemed 
purified?  Burn  this  last  grain  of  incense  on  the  altar  of 
penitence,  lest  all  shall  be  one  lie  in  you." 

"  There  was  still  this  last  struggle  to  make,  and  it  is  made," 
she  said,  drying  her  eyes.  "  The  evil  one  was  lurking  in  the 
last  recess  in  my  heart,  and  doubtless  it  was  God  who  put  into 
M.  de  Granville's  heart  the  thought  that  sends  him  here.  How 
many  times  will  He  smite  me  yet?  "  she  cried. 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    TOMB.  263 

She  stopped  as  if  to  put  up  an  inward  prayer;  then  she 
turned  to  Mme.  Sauviat,  and  said  in  a  low  voice  : 

"  Mother  dear,  be  nice  and  kind  to  M.  le  Procureur 
general." 

In  spite  of  herself,  the  old  Auvergnate  shuddered  feverishly. 

"There  is  no  hope  left,"  she  said,  as  she  caught  at  the 
cure's  hand. 

As  she  spoke,  the  cracking  of  the  postillion's  whip  announced 
that  the  caleche  was  climbing  the  avenue ;  the  great  gateway 
stood  open,  the  carriage  turned  in  the  courtyard,  and  in 
another  moment  the  travelers  came  out  upon  the  terrace. 
Beside  the  public  prosecutor  and  M.  Grossetete,  the  arch- 
bishop had  come  (M,  Dutheil  was  in  Limoges  for  Gabriel  de 
Rastignac's  consecration  as  bishop),  and  M.  Roubaud  came 
arm  in  arm  with  Horace  Bianchon,  one  of  the  greatest 
doctors  in  Paris. 

"  You  are  welcome,"  said  Veronique,  addressing  her  guests, 
"  and  you  "  (holding  out  a  hand  to  the  public  prosecutor  and 
grasping  his)  "especially  welcome." 

M.  Grossetete,  the  archbishop,  and  Mme.  Sauviat  ex- 
changed glances  at  this ;  so  great  was  their  astonishment 
that  it  overcame  the  profound  discretion  of  old  age. 

"And  I  thank  him  who  brought  you  here,"  Veronique 
went  on,  as  she  looked  on  the  Comte  de  Granville's  face  for 
the  first  time  in  fifteen  years.  "I  have  borne  you  a  grudge 
for  a  long  time,  but  now  I  know  that  I  have  done  you  an 
injustice  ;  you  shall  know  the  reason  of  all  this  if  you  will 
stay  here  in  Montegnac  for  two  days."  She  turned  to  Horace 
Bianchon — "  This  gentleman  will  confirm  my  apprehensions, 
no  doubt."  Then  to  the  archbishop — "It  is  God  surely 
who  sends  you  to  me,  my  lord,"  she  said  with  a  bow.  "For 
our  old  friendship's  sake  you  will  not  refuse  to  be  with  me  in 
my  last  moments..  By  what  grace,  I  wonder,  have  I  all  those 
who  have  loved  me  and  sustained  me  all  my  life  about  me 
now?" 


264  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

At  the  word  "love"  she  turned  with  graceful,  deliberate 
intent  towards  M.  de  Granville ;  the  kindness  in  her  manner 
brought  tears  into  his  eyes.  There  was  a  deep  silence.  The 
two  doctors  asked  themselves  what  witchcraft  it  was  that 
enabled  the  woman  before  them  to  stand  upright  while  endur- 
ing the  agony  which  she  must. suffer.  The  other  three  were  so 
shocked  at  the  change  that  illness  had  wrought  in  her  that 
they  could  only  communicate  their  thoughts  by  the  eyes. 

"Permit  me  to  go  with  these  gentlemen,"  she  said,  with 
her  unvarying  grace  of  manner;  "it  is  an  urgent  question." 
She  took  leave  of  her  guests,  and,  leaning  upon  the  two 
doctors,  went  towards  the  chateau  so  slowly  and  painfully  that 
it  was  evident  that  the  end  was  at  hand.. 

The  archbishop  looked  at  the  cure. 

"  M.  Bonnet,"  he  said,  u  you  have  worked  wonders  !  " 

"Not  I,  but  God,  my  lord,"  answered  the  other. 

"They  said  that  she  was  dying,"  exclaimed  M.  Grosset£te  ; 
"why,  she  is  dead  !     There  is  nothing  left  but  a  spirit " 

"A  soul,"  said  M.  Gerard, 

"  She  is  the  same  as  ever,"  cried  the  public  prosecutor. 

"She  is  a  Stoic  after  the  manner  of  the  old  Greek  Zeno," 
said  the  tutor. 

Silently  they  went  along  the  terrace  and  looked  out  over 
the  landscape  that  glowed  a  most  glorious  red  color  in  the 
lighj  shed  abroad  by  the  fires  of  the  sunset. 

"It  is  thirteen  years  since  I  saw  this  before,"  said  the  arch- 
bishop, indicating  the  fertile  fields,  the  valley,  and  the  hill 
above  Montegnac,  "so  for  me  this  miracle  is  as  extraordi- 
nary as  another  which  I  have  just  witnessed  ;  for  how  can  you 
let  Mme.  Graslin  stand  upright?  She  ought  to  be  lying  in 
bed " 

"So  she  was,"  said  Mme.  Sauviat.  "She  never  left  her 
bed  for  ten  days,'  but  she  was  determined  to  get  up  to  see 
this  place  for  the  last  time." 

"I  understand,"  said  M.  de  Granville.     "She  wished  to 


VERONIQUE  LAID   IN  THE    TOMB.  265 

say  farewell  to  all  that  she  had  called  into  being,  but  she  ran 
the  risk  of  dying  here  on  the  terrace." 

"  M.  Roubaud  said  that  she  was  not  to  be  thwarted,"  said 
Mme.  Sauviat. 

' 'What  a  marvelous  thing!"  exclaimed  the  archbishop, 
whose  eyes  never  wearied  of  wandering  over  the  view.  "  She 
has  made  the  waste  into  sown  fields.  But  we  know,  mon- 
sieur," he  added,  turning  to  Gerard,  "that  your  skill  and 
your  labors  have  been  a  great  factor  in  this." 

"  We  have  only  been  her  laborers,"  the  mayor  said.  "  Yes ; 
we  are  only  the  hands,  she  was  the  head." 

Mme.  Sauviat  left  the  group,  and  went  to  hear  what  the 
opinion  of  the  doctor  from  Paris  was. 

"We  shall  stand  in  need  of  heroism  to  be  present  at  this 
death-bed,"  said  the  public  prosecutor,  addressing  the  arch- 
bishop and  the  cure. 

"Yes,"  said  M.  Grossetete ;  "  but  for  such  a  friend,  great 
things  should  be  done." 

.While  they  waited  and  came  and  went,  oppressed  by  heavy 
thoughts,  two  of  Mme.  Graslin's  tenants  came  up.  They  had 
come,  they  said,  on  behalf  of  a  whole  township  waiting  in 
painful  suspense  to  hear  the  verdict  of  the  doctor  from  Paris. 

"They  are  in  consultation,  we  know  nothing  as  yet,  my 
friends,"  said  the  archbishop. 

M.  Roubaud  came  hurrying  towards  them,  and  at  the  sound 
of  his  quick  footsteps  the  others  hastened  to  meet  him. 

"  Well  ?  "  asked  the  mayor. 

"She  has  not  forty-eight  hours  to  live,"  answered  M.  Rou- 
baud. "  The  disease  has  developed  while  I  was  away.  M. 
Bianchon  cannot  understand  how  she  could  walk.  These  sel- 
dom seen  phenomena  are  always  the  result  of  great  exaltation 
of  mind.  And  so,  gentlemen,"  he  added,  speaking  to  the 
churchmen,  "she  has  passed  out  of  our  hands  and  into  yours; 
science  is  powerless  ;  my  illustrious  colleague  thinks  that  there 
is  scarcely  time  for  the  ceremonies  of  the  church." 


266  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

"  Let  us  put  up  the  prayers  appointed  for  times  of  great 
calamity,"  said  the  cure,  and  he  went  away  with  his  parish- 
ioners. "  His  lordship  will  no  doubt  condescend  to  admin- 
ister the  last  sacraments." 

The  archbishop  bowed  his  head  in  reply ;  he  could  not  say 
a  word,  his  eyes  were  full  of  tears.  The  group  sat  down  or 
leaned  against  the  balustrade,  and  each  was  deep  in  his  own 
thoughts.  The  church  bells  peeled  mournfully,  the  sound  of 
many  footsteps  came  up  from  below,  the  whole  village  was 
flocking  to  the  service.  The  light  of  the  altar  candles  gleamed 
through  the  trees  in  M.  Bonnet's  garden,  and  then  began  the 
sounds  of  chanting.  A  faintly  flushed  twilight  overspread  the 
fields,  the  birds  had  ceased  to  sing,  and  the  only  sound  in 
the  plain  was  the  shrill,  melancholy,  long-drawn  note  of  the 
frogs. 

"  Let  us  do  our  duty,"  said  the  archbishop  at  last,  and  he 
went  slowly  towards  the  house,  like  a  man  who  carries  a  burden 
greater  than  he  can  bear. 

The  consultation  had  taken  place  in  the  great  drawing- 
room,  a  vast  apartment  which  communicated  with  a  state 
bedroom,  draped  with  crimson  damask.  Here  Graslin  had 
exhibited  to  the  full  the  self-made  man's  taste  for  display. 
Veronique  had  not  entered  the  room  half-a-dozen  times  in 
fourteen  years;  the  great  suite  of  apartments  was  completely 
useless  to  her ;  she  had  never  received  visitors  in  them,  but 
the  effort  she  had  made  to  discharge  her  last  obligations  and 
to  quell  her  revolted  physical  nature  had  left  her  powerless  to 
reach  her  own  rooms. 

The  great  doctor  had  taken  his  patient's  hand  and  felt  her 
pulse,  then  he  looked  significantly  at  M.  Roubaud,  and  the 
two  men  carried  her  into  the  adjoining  room  and  laid  her  on 
the  bed,  Aline  hastily  flinging  open  the  doors  for  them.  There 
were,  of  course,  no  sheets  on  the  state  bed ;  the  two  doctors 
laid  Mme.  Graslin  at  full  length  on  the  crimson  quilt,  Roubaud 
opened  the  windows,  flung  back  the  Venetian  shutters,  and 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    TOMB.  267 

summoned  help.  La  Sauviat  and  the  servants  came  hurrying 
to  the  room ;  they  lighted  the  wax-candles  (yellow  with  age) 
in  the  sconces. 

Then  the  dying  woman  smiled.  "  It  is  decreed  that  my 
death  shall  be  a  festival,  as  a  Christian's  death  should  be." 

During  the  consultation  she  spoke  again  — 

"  The  public  prosecutor  has  done  his  work:  I  was  going; 
he  has  despatched  me  sooner " 

The  old  mother  laid  a  finger  on  her  lips  with  a  warning 
glance. 

"Mother,  I  will  speak  now,"  Veronique  said  in  answer. 
"  Look  !  the  finger  of  God  is  in  all  this ;  I  shall  die  very  soon 
in  this  room  hung  with  red " 

La  Sauviat  went  out  in  dismay  at  the  words. 

"Aline  !  "  she  cried,  "she  is  speaking  out ! " 


"Ah!  madame's  mind  is  wandering,"  said  the  faithful 
waiting- woman,  coming  in  with  the  sheets.  "  Send  for  M.  le 
Cure,  madame." 

"  You  must  undress  your  mistress,"  said  Bianchon,  as  soon 
as  Aline  entered  the  room. 

"  It  will  be  very  difficult ;  madame  wears  a  hair  shirt  next 
her  skin." 

"What?"  the  great  doctor  cried,  "are  such  horrors  still 
practiced  in  this  nineteenth  century  ?  " 

"  Mme.  Graslin  has  .never  allowed  me  to  touch  the 
stomach,"  said  M.  Roubaud.  "  I  could  learn  nothing  of  her 
complaint  save  from  her  face  and  her  pulse,  and  from  what  I 
could  learn  from  her  mother  and  her  maid." 

Veronique  was  laid  on  a  sofa  while  they  made  the  great  bed 
ready  for  her  at  the  farther  end  of  the  room.  The  doctors 
spoke  together  with  lowered  voices  as  La  Sauviat  and  Aline 
made  the  bed.  There  was  a  look  terrible  to  see  in  the  two 
women's  faces;  the  same  thought  was  wringing  both  their 
hearts.  "  We  are  making  her  bed  for  the  last  time — this  will 
be  her  bed  of  death," 


268  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

The  consultation  was  brief.  In  the  first  place,  Bianchon 
insisted  that  Aline  and  La  Sauviat  must  cut  the  patient  out  of 
the  cilice  and  put  her  in  a  nightdress.  The  two  doctors 
waited  in  the  great  drawing-room  while  this  was  done.  Aline 
came  out  with  the  terrible  instrument  of  penance  wrapped 
in  a  towel.      "  Madame  is  just  one  wound,"  she  told  them. 

"  Madame,  you  have  a  stronger  will  than  Napoleon  had," 
said  Bianchon,  when  the  two  doctors  had  come  in  again,  and 
Veronique  had  given  clear  answers  to  the  questions  put  to  her. 
"  You  are  preserving  your  faculties  in  the  last,  stage  of  a  dis- 
ease in  which  the  Emperor's  brilliant  intellect  sank.  From 
what  I  know  of  you,  I  feel  that  I  owe  it  to  you  to  tell  you 
the  truth." 

"  I  implore  you,  with  clasped  hands,  to  tell  it  me,"  she  said  ; 
"you  can  measure  the  strength  that  remains  to  me,  and  I 
have  need  of  all  the  life  that  is  in  me  for  a  few  hours  yet." 

"You  must  think  of  nothing  but  your  salvation,"  said 
Bianchon. 

"If  God  grants  that  body  and  mind  die  together,"  she 
said,  with  a  divinely  sweet  smile,  "believe  that  the  favoi  is 
vouchsafed  for  the  glory  of  His  Church  on  earth.  My  mind 
is  still  needed  to  carry  out  a  thought  from  God,  while  Napoleon 
had  accomplished  his  destiny." 

The  two  doctors  looked  at  each  other  in  amazement ;  the 
words  were  spoken  as  easily  as  if  Mme.  Graslin  had  been  in 
her  drawing-room. 

"  Ah  !  here  is  the  doctor  who  will  heal  me,"  she  added,  as 
the  archbishop  entered. 

She  summoned  all  her  strength  to  sit  upright  to  take  leave 
of  M.  Bianchon,  speaking  graciously,  and  asking  him  to 
accept  something  beside  money  for  the  good  news  which  he 
had  just  brought  her ;  then  she  whispered  a  few  words  to  her 
mother,  who  went  out  with  the  doctor.  She  asked  the  arch- 
bishop to  wait  until  the  cure  should  come,  and  seemed  to  wish 
to  rest  for  a  little  while.     Aline  sat  by  her  mistress'  bedside. 


vAronique  laid  IJV  THE  TOMB.  269 

At  midnight  Mme.  Graslin  woke  and  asked  for  the  arch- 
bishop and  the  cure.  Aline  told  her  that  they  were  in  the 
room  engaged  in  prayer  for  her.  With  a  sign  she  dismissed 
her  mother  and  the  maid,  and  beckoned  the  two  priests  to 
her  bed. 

"  Nothing  of  what  I  shall  say  is  unknown  to  you,  my  lord, 
nor  to  you,  M.  le  Cure.  You,  my  lord  archbishop,  were  the 
first  to  look  into  my  conscience;  at  a  glance  you  read  almost 
the  whole  past,  and  that  which  you  saw  was  enough  for  you. 
My  confessor,  an  angel  sent  by  heaven  to  be  near  me,  knows 
something  more  ;  I  have  confessed  all  to  him,  as  in  duty 
bound.  And  now  I  wish  to  consult  you — whose  minds  are 
enlightened  by  the  spirit  of  the  church  ;  I  want  to  ask  you 
how  such  a  woman  as  I  should  take  leave  of  this  life  as  a  true 
Christian.  You,  spirits  holy  and  austere,  do  you  think  that 
if  heaven  vouchsafes  pardon  to  the  most  complete  and  pro- 
found repentance  ever  made  by  a  guilty  soul,  I  shall  have 
accomplished  my  whole  task  here  on  earth?" 

"Yes;  yes,  my  daughter,"  said  the  archbishop. 

"No,  my  father,  no!"  she  cried,  sitting  upright,  and 
lightning's  flashed  from  her  eves.  "  Yonder  lies  an  unhappy 
man  in  his  grave,  not  many  steps  away,  under  the  sole  weight 
of  a  hideous  crime ;  here,  in  this  sumptuous  house,  there  is  a 
woman  crowned  with  the  aureola  of  good  deeds  and  a  virtu- 
ous life.  They  bless  the  woman  ;  they  curse  him,  poor  boy. 
On  the  criminal  they  heap  execrations,  I  enjoy  the  good 
opinion  of  all ;  yet  most  of  the  blame  of  his  crime  is  mine, 
and  a  great  part  of  the  good  for  which  they  praise  me  so  and 
are  grateful  to  me  is  his ;  cheat  that  I  am  !  I  have  the  credit 
of  it,  and  he,  a  martyr  to  his  loyalty  to  me,  is  covered  with 
shame.  In  a  few  hours  I  shall  die,  and  a  whole  canton  will 
weep  for  me,  a  whole  department  will  praise  my  good  deeds, 
my  piety,  and  my  virtues ;  and  he  died  reviled  and  scorned, 
a  whole  town  crowding  about  to  see  him  die,  for  hate  of  the 
murderer  S     You,  my  judges,  are  indulgent  to  me,  but  I  hear 


270  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

an  imperious  voice  within  me  that  will  not  let  me  rest.  Ah  ! 
God's  hand,  more  heavy  than  yours,  has  been  laid  upon  me 
day  by  day,  as  if  to  warn  me  that  all  was  not  expiated  yet. 
My  sin  shall  be  redeemed  by  public  confession.  Oh  !  he  was 
happy,  that  criminal  who  went  to  a  shameful  death  in  the  face 
of  earth  and  heaven  !  But  as  for  me,  I  cheated  justice,  and 
I  am  still  a  cheat  !  All  the  respect  shown  to  me  has  been  like 
mockery,  not  a  word  of  praise  but  has  scorched  my  heart 
like  fire.  And  now  the  public  prosecutor  has  come  here.  Do 
you  not  see  that  the  will  of  heaven  is  in  accordance  with  this 
voice  that  cries  *  Confess  ?  " ' 

Both  priests,  the  prince  of  the  church  and  the  simple 
country  parson,  the  two  great  luminaries,  remained  silent,  and 
kept  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground.  So  deeply  moved 
were  the  judges  by  the  greatness  and  the  submission  of  the 
sinner  that  they  could  not  pass  sentence.  After  a  pause,  the 
archbishop  raised  his  noble  face,  thin  and  worn  with  the  daily 
practice  of  austerity  in  a  devout  life. 

"  My  child,"  he  said,  "  you  are  going  beyond  the  command- 
ments of  the  church.  It  is  the  glory  of  the  church  that  she 
adapts  her  dogmas  to  the  conditions  of  life  in  every  age ;  for 
the  church  is  destined  to  make  the  pilgrimage  of  the  centuries 
side  by  side  with  humanity.  According  to  the  decision  of 
the  church,  private  confession  has  replaced  public  confession. 
This  substitution  has  made  the  new  rule  of  life.  The  suffer- 
ings which  you  have  endured  suffice.  Depart  in  peace.  God 
has  heard  you  indeed." 

"  But  is  not  this  wish  of  a  criminal  in  accordance  with  the 
rule  of  the  early  church,  which  filled  heaven  with  as  many 
saints  and  martyrs  and  confessors  as  there  are  stars  in  heaven?" 
Veronique  cried  earnestly.  "Who  was  it  that  wrote  '  Con- 
fess your  faults  one  to  another?'  Was  it  not  one  of  our 
Saviour's  own  immediate  disciples?  Let  me  confess  my 
shame  publicly  upon  my  knees.  That  will  be  an  expiation 
of  the  wrong  that  I  have  done  to  the  world,  and  to  a  family 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    TOMB.  271 

exiled  and  almost  extinct  through  my  sin.  The  world  should 
know  that  my  good  deeds  are  not  an  offering  to  God ;  that 

they  are  only  the  just  payment  of  a  debt Suppose  that, 

when  I  am  gone,  some  finger  should  raise  the  veil  of  lies  that 

covers  me  ? Oh,  the  thought  of  it  brings  the  supreme  hour 

nearer." 

"I  see  calculation  in  this,  my  child,"  the  archbishop  said 
gravely.  "There  are  still  strong  passions  left  in  you;  that 
which  I  deemed  extinguished  is " 

"My  lord,"  she  cried,  breaking  in  upon  the  speaker,  turn- 
ing her  fixed  horror-stricken  eyes  on  him,  "  I  swear  to  you  that 
my  heart  is  purified  so  far  as  it  may  be  in  a  guilty  and  repent- 
ant woman  ;  there  is  no  thought  left  in  me  now  but  the  thought 
of  God." 

"  Let  us  leave  heaven's  justice  take  its  course,  my  lord," 
the  cure  said,  in  a  softened  voice.  "  I  have  opposed  this  idea 
for  four  years.  It  has  caused  the  only  differences  of  opinion 
which  have  risen  between  my  penitent  and  me.  I  have  seen 
the  very  depths  of  this  soul;  earth  has  no  hold  left  there. 
When  the  tears,  sighs,  and  contrition  of  fifteen  years  have 
buried  a  sin  in  which  two  beings  shared,  do  not  think  that 
there  is  the  least  luxurious  taint  in  the  long  and  dreadful 
remorse.  For  a  long  while  memory  has  ceased  to  mingle 
its  flames  in  the  most  ardent  repentance.  Yes,  many  tears 
have  quenched  so  great  a  fire.  I  will  answer,"  he  said, 
stretching  his  hand  out  above  Mme.  Graslin's  head  and  raising 
his  tear-filled  eyes,  "  I  will  answer  for  the  purity  of  this  arch- 
angel's soul.  I  used  once  to  see  in  this  desire  a  thought  of 
reparation  to  an  absent  family ;  it  seems  as  if  God  Himself 
has  sent  one  member  of  it  here,  through  one  of  those  acci- 
dents in  which  His  guidance  is  unmistakably  revealed." 

Veronique  took  the  cure's  trembling  hand  and  kissed  it. 

"You  have  often  been  harsh  to  me,  dear  pastor,"  she  said ; 
"and  now,  in  this  moment,  I  discover  where  your  apostolic 
sweetness  lay  hidden.     You,"  she  said,  turning  to  the  arch- 


272  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

bishop,  "  you,  the  supreme  head  of  this  corner  of  God's  earthly 
kingdom,  be  my  stay  in  this  time  of  humiliation.  I  shall 
prostrate  myself  as  the  lowest  of  women  ;  you  will  raise  me,  a 
forgiven  soul,  equal,  it  may  be,  with  those  who  have  never 
gone  astray." 

The  archbishop  was  silent  for  a  while,  engaged,  no 
doubt,  in  weighing  the  considerations  visible  to  his  eagle's 
glance. 

"  My  lord,"  said  the  cure,  " deadly  blows  have  been  aimed 
at  religion.  Will  not  this  return  to  ancient  customs,  made 
necessary  by  the  greatness  both  of  the  sin  and  the  repentance, 
be  a  triumph  which  will  redound  to  us?  " 

"  They  will  say  that  we  are  fanatics  !  that  we  have  insisted 
on  this  cruel  scene  !  "  and  the  archbishop  fell  once  more  to 
his  meditations. 

Just  at  that  moment  Horace  Bianchon  and  Roubaud  came 
in  without  knocking  at  the  door.  As  it  opened,  Veronique 
saw  her  mother,  her  son,  and  all  the  servants  kneeling  in 
prayer.  The  cures  of  the  two  neighboring  parishes  had  come 
to  assist  M.  Bonnet ;  perhaps  also  to  pay  their  respects  to  the 
great  archbishop,  in  whom  the  church  of  France  saw  a  car- 
dinal-designate, hoping  that  some  day  the  Sacred  College 
might  be  enlightened  by  the  advent  of  an  intellect  so  thor- 
oughly Gallican. 

Horace  Bianchon  was  about  to  start  for  Paris ;  he  came  to 
bid  farewell  to  the  dying  lady,  and  to  thank  her  for  her  mu- 
nificence. He  approached  the  bed  slowly,  guessing  from  the 
manner  of  the  two  priests  that  the  inward  wound  which  had 
caused  the  disease  of  the  body  was  now  under  consideration. 
He  took  Veronique's  hand,  laid  it  on  the  bed,  and  felt  her 
pulse.  The  deepest  silence,  the  silence  of  the  fields  in  a 
summer-night,  added  solemnity  to  the  scene.  Lights  shone 
from  the  great  drawing-room,  beyond  the  folding  doors,  and 
fell  upon  the  little  company  of  kneeling  figures,  the  cures  only 
were  seated,  reading  their  breviaries.     About  the  crimson  bed 


VERONIQUE  LAID   IN  THE    TOMB.  273 

of  state  stood  the  archbishop,  in  his  violet  robes,  the  cur6, 
and  the  two  men  of  science. 

"She  is  troubled  even  in  death !  "  said  Horace  Bianchon. 
Like  many  men  of  great  genius,  he  not  seldom  found  grand 
words  worthy  of  the  scenes  at  which  he  was  present. 

The  archbishop  rose,  as  if  goaded  by  some  inward  impulse. 
He  called  M.  Bonnet,  and  went  towards  the  door.  They 
crossed  the  chamber  and  the  drawing-room,  and  went  out  upon 
the  terrace,  where  they  walked  up  and  down  for  a  few  min- 
utes. As  they  came  in  after  a  consideration  of  this  point  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline,  Roubaud  went  to  meet  them. 

"  M.  Bianchon  sent  me  to  tell  you  to  be  quick ;  Mme.  Gras- 
lin  is  dying  in  strange  agitation,  which  is  not  caused  by  the 
severe  physical  pain  which  she  is  suffering." 

The  archbishop  hurried  back,  and  in  reply  to  Mme.  Gras- 
lin's  anxious  eyes,  he  said,  "  You  shall  be  satisfied." 

Bianchon  (still  with  his  finger  on  the  dying  woman's  wrist) 
made  an  involuntary  start  of  surprise;  he  gave  Roubaud  a 
quick  look,  and  then  glanced  at  the  priests. 

"  My  lord,  this  body  is  no  longer  our  province,"  he  said, 
"your  words  brought  life  in  the  place  of  death.  You  make 
a  miracle  credible." 

"Madame  has  been  nothing  but  soul  this  long  time 
past,"  said  Roubaud,  and  Veronique  thanked  him  by  a 
glance. 

A  smile  crossed  her  face  as  she  lay  there,  and,  with  the 
smile  that  expressed  the  gladness  of  a  completed  expiation, 
the  innocent  look  of  the  girl  of  eighteen  returned  to  her. 
The  appalling  lines  traced  by  inward  tumult,  the  dark  color- 
ing, the  livid  patches,  all  the  details  that  but  lately  had  con- 
tributed a  certain  dreadful  beauty  to  her  face,  all  alterations 
of  all  kinds,  in  short,  had  vanished  ;  to  those  who  watched 
Veronique,  it  seemed  as  if  she  had  been  wearing  a  mask  and 
had  suddenly  dropped  it.  The  wonderful  transfiguration  by 
which  the  inward  life  and  nature  of  this  woman  were  made 
18 


274  THE    COUNTRY  PARSON. 

visible  in  her  features  was  wrought  for  the  last  time.  Her 
whole  being  was  purified  and  illuminated,  her  face  might  have 
caught  a  gleam  from  the  flaming  swords  of  the  guardian  angels 
about  her.  She  looked  once  more  as  she  used  to  look  in 
Limoges  when  they  called  her  "  the  little  Virgin."  The  love 
of  God  manifestly  was  yet  stronger  in  her  than  the  guilty  love 
had  been ;  the  earthly  love  had  brought  out  all  the  forces  of 
life  in  her;  the  love  of  God  dispelled  every  trace  of  the  in- 
roads of  death.  A  smothered  cry  was  heard.  La  Sauviat 
appeared  ;  she  sprang  to  the  bed.  "  So  I  see  my  child  again 
at  last !  "  she  exclaimed. 

Something  in  the  old  woman's  accent  as  she  uttered  the  two 
words,  "  my  child,"  conjured  up  such  visions  of  early  child- 
hood and  its  innocence,  that  those  who  watched  by  this  heroic 
death-bed  turned  their  heads  away  to  hide  their  emotion. 
The  great  doctor  took  Mme.  Graslin's  hand,  kissed  it,  and 
then  went  his  way,  and  soon  the  sound  of  his  departing  car- 
riage sent  echoes  over  the  countryside,  spreading  the  tidings 
that  he  had  no  hope  of  saving  the  life  of  her  who  was  the  life 
of  the  country.  The  archbishop,  cure,  and  doctor,  and  all 
who  felt  tired,  went  to  take  a  little  rest.  Mme.  Graslin  her- 
self slept  for  some  hours.  When  she  awoke  the  dawn  was 
breaking ;  she  asked  them  to  open  the  windows,  she  would 
see  her  last  sunrise. 

At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  archbishop,  in  pontifical 
vestments,  came  back  to  Mme.  Graslin's  room.  Both  he  and 
M.  Bonnet  reposed  such  confidence  in  her  that  they  made  no 
recommendations  as  to  the  limits  to  be  observed  in  her  confes- 
sion. Veronique  saw  other  faces  of  other  clergy,  for  some  of 
the  cures  from  neighboring  parishes  had  come.  The  splendid 
ornaments  which  Mme.  Graslin  had  presented  to  her  beloved 
parish  church  lent  splendor  to  the  ceremony.  Eight  children, 
choristers  in  their  red-and-white  surplices,  stood  in  a  double 
row  between  the  bed  and  the  door  of  the  great  drawing-room, 
each  of  them  holding  one  of  the  great  candlesticks  of  gilded 


VERONIQUE   LAID   IN   THE    TOMB.  275 

bronze  which  Veronique  had  ordered  from  Paris.  A  white- 
haired  sacristan  on  either  side  of  the  dais  held  the  banner  of 
the  church  and  the  crucifix.  The  servants,  in  their  devotion, 
had  removed  the  wooden  altar  from  the  sacristy  and  erected 
it  near  the  drawing-room  door ;  it  was  decked  and  ready  for 
the  archbishop  to  say  mass.  Mme.  Graslin  was  touched  by 
an  attention  which  the  church  pays  only  to  crowned  heads. 
The  great  folding-doors  that  gave  access  to  the  dining-room 
stood  wide  open,  so  that  she  could  see  the  hall  of  the  chateau 
filled  with  people;  nearly  all  the  village  was  there. 

Her  friends  had  seen  to  everything,  none  but  the  people 
of  the  house  stood  in  the  drawing-room;  and  before  them, 
grouped  about  the  door  of  her  room,  she  saw  her  intimate 
friends  and  those  whose  discretion  might  be  trusted.  M. 
Grossetete,  M.  de  Granville,  Roubaud,  Gerard,  Clousier,  and 
Ruffin  stood  foremost  among  these.  All  of  them  meant  to 
stand  upright  when  the  time  came,  so  that  the  dying  woman's 
confession  should  not  travel  beyond  them.  Other  things 
favored  this  design,  for  the  sobs  of  those  about  her  drowned 
her  voice. 

Two  of  these  stood  out  dreadfully  conspicuous  among  the 
rest.  The  first  was  Denise  Tascheron.  In  her  foreign  dress, 
made  with  Quakerly  simplicity,  she  was  unrecognizable  to  any 
of  the  villagers  who  might  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  her.  Not 
so  for  the  public  prosecutor ;  she  was  a  figure  that  he  was  not 
likely  to  forget,  and  with  her  reappearance  a  dreadful  light 
began  to  dawn  on  him.  Now  he  had  a  glimpse  of  the  truth, 
a  suspicion  of  the  part  which  he  had  played  in  Mme.  Graslin's 
life,  and  then  the  whole  truth  flashed  upon  him.  Less  over- 
awed than  the  rest  by  the  religious  influence,  the  child  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  man  of  law  felt  a  cruel  sensation  of 
dismay;  the  whole  drama  of  Veronique's  inner  life  in  the 
Hotel  Graslin  during  Tascheron's  trial  opened  out  before  him. 
The  whole  of  that  tragic  epoch  reconstructed  itself  in  his 
memory,  lighted  up  by  La  Sauviat's  eyes,  which  gleamed  with 


276  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

hate  of  him  not  ten  paces  away ;  those  eyes  seemed  to  direct 
a  double  stream  of  molten  lead  upon  him.  The  old  woman 
had  forgiven  him  nothing.  The  impersonation  of  man's  jus- 
tice felt  shudders  run  through  his  frame.  He  stood  there 
heart-stricken  and  pallid,  not  daring  to  turn  his  eyes  to  the 
bed  where  the  woman  he  had  loved  was  lying,  lived  beneath 
the  shadow  of  death's  hand,  drawing  strength  from  the  very 
magnitude  of  her  offense  to  quell  her  agony.  Vertigo  seized 
on  him  as  he  saw  Veronique's  shrunken  profile,  a  white  out- 
line in  sharp  relief  against  the  crimson  damask. 

The  mass  began  at  eleven  o'clock.  When  the  cure  of  Vizay 
had  read  the  epistle,  the  archbishop  divested  himself  of  his 
dalmatic,  and  took  up  his  station  in  the  doorway — 

"  Christians  here  assembled  to  witness  the  administration 
of  extreme  unction  to  the  mistress  of  this  house,  you  who  are 
uniting  your  prayers  to  those  of  the  church  to  make  interces- 
sion with  God  for  the  salvation  of  her  soul,  learn  that  she 
thinks  herself  unworthy  to  receive  the  holy  viaticum  until  she 
has  made,  for  the  edification  of  others,  a  public  confession 
of  her  greatest  sin.  We  withstood  her  pious  desire,  although 
this  act  of  contrition  was  long  in  use  in  the  church  in  the 
earliest  Christian  times ;  but  as  the  afflicted  woman  tells  us 
that  the  confession  touches  on  the  rehabilitation  of  an  un- 
happy child  of  this  parish,  we  leave  her  free  to  follow  the 
inspirations  of  repentance." 

After  these  words,  spoken  with  the  benign  dignity  of  a 
shepherd  of  souls,  the  archbishop  turned  and  gave  place  to 
Veronique.  The  dying  woman  was  seen,  supported  by  her 
mother  and  the  cure,  two  great  and  venerable  symbols  :  did 
she  not  owe  her  double  existence  to  the  earthly  mother  who 
had  borne  her,  and  to  the  church,  the  mother  of  her  soul  ? 
Kneeling  on  a  cushion,  she  clasped  her  hands  and  meditated 
for  a  moment  to  gather  up  and  concentrate  the  strength  to 
speak  from  some  source  derived  from  heaven.  There  was 
something  unspeakably  awful  in  that  silent  pause.     No  one 


V&RONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    TOMB.  277 

dared  to  look  at  his  neighbor.  All  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 
ground.  Yet  when  Veronique  looked  up,  she  met  the  public 
prosecutor's  glance,  and  the  expression  of  that  white  face  sent 
the  color  to  her  own. 

"I  should  not  have  died  in  peace,"  Veronique  began,  in  a 
voice  unlike  her  natural  tone,  "  if  I  had  left  behind  the  false 
impression  which  each  one  of  you  who  hears  me  speak  has 
possibly  formed  of  me.  In  me  you  see  a  great  sinner,  who 
beseeches  your  prayers,  and  seeks  to  merit  pardon  by  the 
public  confession  of  her  sin.  So  deeply  has  she  sinned,  so 
fatal  were  the  consequences  of  her  guilt,  that  it  may  be  that 
no  repentance  will  redeem  it.  And  yet  the  greater  my 
humiliation  on  earth,  the  less,  doubtless,  have  I  to  dread  from 
God's  anger  in  the  heavenly  kingdom  whither  I  fain  would  go. 

"It  is  nearly  twenty  years  since  my  father,  who  had  such 
great  belief  in  me,  recommended  a  son  of  this  parish  to  my 
care;  he  had  seen  in  him  a  wish  to  live  rightly,  aptitude,  and 
an  excellent  disposition.  This  young  man  was  the  unhappy 
Jean-Francois  Tascheron,  who  thenceforward  attached  himself 
to  me  as  his  benefactress.  How  was  it  that  my  affection  for 
him  became  a  guilty  one  ?  That  explanation  need  not,  I 
think,  be  required  of  me.  Yet,  perhaps,  it  might  be  thought 
that  the  purest  possible  motives  were  imperceptibly  transformed 
by  unheard-of  self-sacrifice,  by  human  frailty,  by  a  host  of 
causes  which  might  seem  to  be  extenuations  of  my  guilt. 
But  am  I  the  less  guilty  because  our  noblest  affections  were  my 
accomplices?  I  would  rather  admit,  in  spite  of  the  barriers 
raised  by  the  delicacy  natural  to  our  sex  between  me  and  the 
young  man  whom  my  father  intrusted  to  me,  that  I,  who  by 
my  education  and  social  position  might  regard  myself  as  his 
protege's  superior,  listened,  in  an  evil  hour,  to  the  voice  of 
the  tempter.  I  soon  found  that  my  maternal  position  brought 
me  into  contact  with  him  so  close  that  I  could  not  but  be 
sensible  of  his  mute  and  delicate  admiration.  He  was  the 
first  and  only  creature  to  appreciate  me  at   my  just  value. 

W 


278  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

Perhaps,  too,  I  myself  was  led  astray  by  unworthy  considera- 
tions. I  thought  that  I  could  trust  to  the  discretion  of  a 
young  man  who  owed  everything  to  me,  whom  chance  had 
placed  so  far  below  me,  albeit  by  birth  we  were  equals.  In 
fact,  I  found  a  cloak  to  screen  my  conduct  in  my  name  for 
charity  and  good  deeds.  Alas  !  (and  this  is  one  of  my  worst 
sins)  I  hid  my  passion  in  the  shadow  of  the  altar.  I  made 
everything  conduce  to  the  miserable  triumph  of  a  mad  passion, 
the  most  irreproachable  actions,  my  love  for  my  mother,  acts 
of  a  devotion  that  was  very  real  and  sincere  and  through  so 
many  errors — all  these  things  were  so  many  links  in  a  chain 
that  bound  me.  My  poor  mother,  whom  I  love  so  much,  who 
hears  me  even  now,  was  unwittingly  and  for  a  long  while  my 
accomplice.  When  her  eyes  were  opened,  I  was  too  deeply 
committed  to  my  dangerous  way,  and  she  found  strength  to 
keep  my  secret  in  the  depths  of  her  mother  heart.  Silence 
in  her  has  thus  become  the  loftiest  of  virtues.  Love  for  her 
daughter  overcame  the  love  of  God.  Ah  !  now  I  solemnly 
relieve  her  of  the  load  of  secrecy  which  she  has  carried.  She 
shall  end  her  days  with  no  lie  in  her  eyes  and  brow.  May 
her  motherhood  absolve  her,  may  her  noble  and  sacred  old 
age,  crowned  with  virtues,  shine  forth  in  all  its  radiance,  now 
that  the  link  which  bound  her  indirectly  to  touch  such  infamy 
is  severed " 

Here  Veronique's  sobs  interrupted  her  words ;  Aline  made 
her  inhale  salts. 

"  Only  one  other  has  hitherto  been  in  this  secret,  the  faith- 
ful servant  who  does  me  this  last  service  ;  she  has,  at  least, 
feigned  not  to  know  what  she  must  have  known,  but  she  has 
been  in  the  secret  of  the  austerities  by  which  I  have  broken 
this  weak  flesh.  So  I  ask  pardon  of  the  world  for  having 
lived  a  lie,  drawn  into  that  lie  by  the  remorseless  logic  of  the 
world. 

"Jean-Francois  Tascheron  is  not  as  guilty  as  men  may  have 
thought  him.     Oh,  all  you  who  hear  me !    I  beg  of  you  to 


VERONIQUE  LAID  IN  THE    TOMB.  279 

remember  how  young  he  was,  and  that  his  frenzy  was  caused 
at  least  as  much  by  the  remorse  which  seized  on  me,  as  by  the 
spell  of  an  involuntary  attraction.  And  more,  far  more,  do 
not  forget  that  it  was  a  sense  of  honor,  if  a  mistaken  sense  of 
honor,  which  caused  the  greatest  disaster  of  all.  Neither  of 
us  could  endure  that  life  of  continual  deceits.  He  turned 
from  them  to  my  own  greatness,  and,  unhappy  that  he  was, 
sought  to  make  our  fatal  love  as  little  of  a  humiliation  as 
might  be  to  me.  So  I  was  the  cause  of  his  crime.  Driven 
by  necessity,  the  unhappy  man,  hitherto  only  guilty  of  too 
great  a  love  for  his  idol,  chose  of  all  evil  actions  the  one  most 
irreparable.  I  knew  nothing  of  it  until  the  very  moment 
when  the  deed  was  done.  Even  as  it  was  being  carried  out, 
God  overturned  the  whole  fabric  of  crooked  designs.  I 
heard  cries  that  ring  even  yet  in  my  ears,  and  went  into  the 
house  again.  I  knew  that  it  was  a  struggle  for  life  and  death, 
and  that  I,  the  object  of  this  mad  endeavor,  was  powerless  to 
interfere.  For  Tascheron  was  mad;  I  bear  witness  that  he 
was  mad  ! " 

Here  Veronique  looked  at  the  public  prosecutor,  and  a 
deep  audible  sigh  came  from  Denise. 

"  He  lost  his  head  when  he  saw  his  happiness  (so  he  be- 
lieved it  to  be)  destroyed  by  unforeseen  circumstances.  Love 
led  him  astray,  then  fate  dragged  him  from  a  misdemeanor  to 
a  crime,  and  from  a  crime  to  a  double  murder.  At  any  rate, 
when  he  left  my  mother's  house  he  was  an  innocent  man  ; 
when  he  returned,  he  was  a  murderer.  I,  and  I  only  in  the 
world,  knew  that  the  crime  was  not  premeditated,  nor  accom- 
panied by  the  aggravating  circumstances  which  brought  the 
sentence  of  death  on  him.  A  hundred  times  I  determined  to 
give  myself  up  to  save  him,  and  a  hundred  times  a  terrible 
but  necessary  heroism  outweighed  all  other  considerations, 
and  the  words  died  on  my  lips.  Surely  my  presence  a  few 
steps  away  must  have  contributed  to  give  him  the  hateful, 
base,    cowardly   courage   of   a   murderer.     If    he   had    been 


280  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

alone,  he  would  have  fled It  was  I  who  had  formed  his 

nature,  who  had  given  him  loftier  thoughts  and  a  greater 
heart ;  I  knew  him ;  he  was  incapable  of  anything  cowardly 
or  base.  Do  justice  to  the  innocent  hand,  do  justice  to  him  ! 
God  in  His  mercy  lets  him  sleep  in  the  grave  that  you,  guess- 
ing doubtless,  the  real  truth,  have  watered  with  your  tears ! 
Punish  and  curse  the  guilty  thing  here  before  you  !  When 
once  the  deed  was  done,  I  was  horror-struck ;  I  did  all  that 
I  could  to  hide  it.  My  father  had  left  a  charge  to  me,  a 
childless  woman ;  I  was  to  bring  one  child  of  God's  family 

to  God,  and  I  brought  him  to  the  scaffold Oh,  heap  all 

your  reproaches  upon  me  !     The  hour  has  come  !  " 

Her  eyes  glittered  with  fierce  pride  as  she  spoke.  The 
archbishop,  standing  behind  her,  with  his  pastoral  cross  held 
out  above  her  head,  no  longer  maintained  his  impassive 
attitude  ;  he  covered  his  eyes  with  his  right  hand,  A  smoth- 
ered sound  like  a  dying  groan  broke  the  silence,  and  two 
men — Gerard  and  Roubaud — caught  Denise  Tascheron  in 
their  arms.  She  had  swooned  away.  The  fire  died  down  in 
Veronique's  eyes;  she  looked  troubled,  but  the  martyr's 
serenity  soon  returned  to  her  face. 

"  I  deserve  no  praise,  no  blessings,  for  my  conduct  here,  as 
you  know  now,"  she  said.  "  In  the  sight  of  heaven  I  have 
led  a  life  full  of  sharp  penance,  hidden  from  all  other  eyes,  and 
heaven  will  value  it  at  its  just  worth.  My  outward  life  has 
been  a  vast  reparation  of  the  evil  that  I  have  wrought ;  I  have 
engraved  my  repentance  in  characters  ineffaceable  upon  this 
wide  land,  a  record  that  will  last  for  ever.  It  is  written 
everywhere  in  the  fields  grown  green,  in  the  growing  town- 
ship, in  the  mountain  streams  turned  from  their  courses  into 
the  plain,  once  wild  and  barren,  now  fertile  and  productive. 
Not  a  tree  shall  be  felled  here  for  a  century  but  the  peasants 
will  tell  the  tale  of  the  remorse  to  which  they  owe  its  shade. 
In  these  ways  the  repentant  spirit  which  should  have  inspired 
a  long  and  useful  life  will  still  make  its  influence  felt  among 


veronique  laid  IN  THE  TOMB.  281 

you  for  a  long  time  to  come.  All  that  you  should  have  owed 
to  his  talents  and  a  fortune  honorably  acquired  has  been  done 
for  you  by  the  executrix  of  his  repentance,  by  her  who  caused 
his  crime.  All  the  wrong  done  socially  has  been  repaired  ;  I 
have  taken  upon  myself  the  work  of  a  life  cut  short  in  its 
flower,  the  life  intrusted  to  my  guidance,  the  life  for  which  I 
must  shortly  give  an  account " 

Here  once  more  the  burning  eyes  were  quenched  in  tears. 
She  paused. 

"There  is  one  among  those  present,"  she  continued, 
"  whom  I  have  hated  with  a  hate  which  I  thought  must  be 
eternal,  simply  because  he  did  no  more  than  his  duty.  He 
was  the  first  instrument  of  my  punishment.  I  was  too  close 
to  the  deed,  my  feet  were  dipped  too  deep  in  blood,  I  was 
bound  to  hate  justice.  I  knew  that  there  was  a  trace  of  evil 
passion  in  my  heart,  so  long  as  that  spark  of  anger  should 
trouble  it;  I  have  had  nothing  to  forgive,  I  have  simply 
purged  the  corner  where  the  evil  one  lurked.  Whatever  the 
victory  cost,  it  is  complete." 

The  public  prosecutor  turned  a  tear-stained  face  to  Veron- 
ique.  It  was  as  if  man's  justice  was  remorseful  in  him.  Ver- 
onique,  turning  her  face  away  to  continue  her  story,  met  the 
eyes  of  an  old  friend ;  Grossetete,  bathed  in  tears,  stretched 
out  his  hands  entreatingly  towards  her.  "It  is  enough  !  "  he 
seemed  to  say.  The  heroic  woman  heard  such  a  chorus  of 
sobs  about  her,  received  so  much  sympathy,  that  she  broke 
down  ;  the  balm  of  the  general  forgiveness  was  too  much, 
weakness  overcame  her.  Seeing  that  the  sources  of  her 
daughter's  strength  were  exhausted,  the  old  mother  seemed  to 
find  in  herself  the  vigor  of  a  young  woman ;  she  held  out  her 
arms  to  carry  Veronique. 

"Christians,"  said  the  archbishop,  "you  have  heard  the 
penitent's  confession  ;  it  confirms  the  decree  of  man's  justice  ; 
it  may  lay  all  scruples  and  anxiety  on  that  score  to  rest.  In 
this  confession  you  should  find  new  reasons  for  uniting  your 


282  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

prayers  to  those  of  the  church,  which  offers  to  God  the  holy 
sacrifice  of  the  mass  to  implore  His  mercy  for  the  sinner  after 
so  grand  a  repentance." 

The  office  was  finished.  Veronique  followed  all  that  was 
said  with  an  expression  of  such  inward  peace  that  she  no 
longer  seemed  to  be  the  same  woman.  Her  face  wore  a  look 
of  frank  innocence,  such  as  it  might  have  worn  in  the  days 
when,  a  pure  and  ingenuous  girl,  she  dwelt  under  her  father's 
roof.  Pier  brows  grew  white  in  the  dawn  of  eternity,  her  face 
glowed  golden  in  the  light  of  heaven.  Doubtless  she  caught 
something  of  its  mystic  harmonies ;  and  in  her  longing  to  be 
made  one  with  God  on  earth  for  the  last  time,  she  exerted  all 
her  powers  of  vitality  to  live.  M.  Bonnet  came  to  the  bed- 
side and  gave  her  absolution ;  the  archbishop  anointed  her 
with  the  holy  oil,  with  a  fatherly  tenderness  that  revealed  to 
those  who  stood  about  how  dear  he  held  this  sheep  that  had 
been  lost  and  was  found.  With  that  holy  anointing  the  eyes 
that  had  wrought  such  mischief  on  earth  were  closed  to  the 
things  of  earth,  the  seal  of  the  church  was  set  on  those  two 
eloquent  lips,  and  the  ears  that  had  listened  to  the  inspiration 
of  evil  were  closed  for  ever.  All  the  senses,  mortified  by 
penitence,  were  thus  sanctified  ;  the  spirit  of  evil  could  have 
no  power  over  this  soul. 

Never  had  all  the  grandeur  and  deep  meaning  of  a  sacra- 
ment been  apprehended  more  thoroughly  than  by  those  who 
saw  the  church's  care  thus  justified  by  the  dying  woman's 
confession.  After  that  preparation,  Veronique  received  the 
body  of  Christ  with  a  look  of  hope  and  joy  that  melted  the 
icy  barrier  of  unbelief  at  which  the  cure  had  so  often  knocked 
in  vain.  Roubaud,  confounded,  became  a  Catholic  from  that 
moment. 

Awful  as  the  scene  was,  it  was  no  less  touching ;  and  in  its 
solemnity,  as  of  the  culminating-point  of  a  drama,  it  might 
have  given  some  painter  the  subject  of  a  masterpiece.  When 
the  mournful  episode  was  over,  and  the  words  of  the  Gospel 


V&R6N1QUE  LAW  IN  THM   TOMB,  288 

of  St.  John  fell  on  the  ears  of  the  dying  woman,  she  beck- 
oned to  her  mother  to  bring  Francis  back  again.  (The  tutor 
had  taken  the  boy  out  of  the  room.)  When  Francis  knelt  on 
the  step  by  the  bedside,  the  mother  whose  sins  had  been  for- 
given felt  free  to  lay  her  hands  in  blessing  on  his  head,  and  so 
she  drew  her  last  breath,  La  Sauviat  standing  at  the  post  she 
had  filled  for  twenty  years,  faithful  to  the  end.  It  was  she,  a 
heroine  after  her  manner,  who  closed  the  eyes  of  the  daughter 
who  had  suffered  so  much,  and  laid  a  kiss  on  them. 

Then  all  the  priests  and  assistants  came  round  the  bed,  and 
intoned  the  dread  chant  De  profundis  by  the  light  of  the 
flaming  torches  ;  and  from  those  sounds  the  people  of  the 
whole  countryside  kneeling  without,  together  with  the  friends 
and  all  the  servants  praying  in  the  hall,  knew  that  the  mother 
of  the  canton  had  passed  away.  Groans  and  sobs  mingled 
with  the  chanting.  The  noble  woman's  confession  had  not 
passed  beyond  the  threshold  of  the  drawing-room  ;  it  had 
reached  none  but  friendly  ears.  When  the  peasants  came 
from  Montegnac,  and  all  the  district  round  about  came  in,  each 
with  a  green  spray,  to  bid  their  benefactress  a  supreme  farewell 
mingled  with  tears  and  prayers,  they  saw  a  representative  of 
man's  justice,  bowed  down  with  anguish,  holding  the  cold 
hand  of  the  woman  to  whom  all  unwittingly  he  had  meted  out 
such  a  cruel  but  just  punishment. 

Two  days  later  and  the  public  prosecutor,  with  GrosseteHe, 
the  archbishop,  and  the  mayor,  bore  the  pall  when  Mme. 
Graslin  was  carried  to  her  last  resting-place.  Amid  deep 
silence  they  laid  her  in  the  grave  ;  no  one  uttered  a  word,  for 
no  one  had  the  heart  to  speak,  and  all  eyes  were  full  of  tears. 

"  She  is  a  saint  !  "  Everywhere  the  words  were  repeated 
along  the  roads  which  she  had  made,  in  the  canton  which 
owed  its  prosperity  to  her.  It  was  as  if  the  words  were  sown 
abroad  across  her  fields  to  quicken  the  life  in  them.  It  struck 
nobody  as  a  strange  thing  that  Mme.  Graslin  should  be  buried 
beside  Jean-Francois  Tascheron.     She  had  not  asked  this  ^ 


284  THE   COUNTRY  PARSON. 

but  a  trace  of  pitying  tenderness  in  the  old  mother  prompted 
her  to  bid  the  sacristan  put  those  together  whom  earth  had 
separated  by  a  violent  death,  whom  one  repentance  should 
unite  in  purgatory. 

Mme.  Graslin's  will  fulfilled  all  expectations.  She  founded 
scholarships  in  the  school  at  Limoges,  and  beds  in  the  hospital, 
intended  for  the  working  classes  only.  A  considerable  sum 
(three  hundred  thousand  francs  in  a  period  of  six  years)  was 
left  to  purchase  that  part  of  the  village  called  "  Tascheron's," 
and  for  building  an  almshouse  there.  It  was  to  serve  as  an 
asylum  for  the  sick  and  aged  poor  of  the  district,  a  lying-in 
hospital  for  destitute  women,  and  a  home  for  foundling  chil- 
dren, and  was  to  be  known  by  the  name  of  Tascheron's  Alms- 
house. Veronique  directed  that  it  was  to  be  placed  in  the 
charge  of  the  Franciscan  Sisters,  and  fixed  the  salary  of  the 
head  physician  and  house  surgeon  at  four  thousand  francs. 
Mme.  Graslin  begged  Roubaud  to  be  the  first  head  physician, 
and  to  superintend  the  execution  of  the  sanitary  arrangements 
and  plans  to  be  made  by  the  architect,  M.  Gerard.  She  also 
endowed  the  commune  of  Montegnac  with  sufficient  land  to 
pay  the  taxes.  A  certain  fund  was  put  in  the  hands  of  the 
church  to  be  used  as  determined  in  some  exceptional  cases ; 
for  the  church  was  to  be  the  guardian  of  the  young  ;  and  if  any 
of  the  children  in  Montegnac  should  show  a  special  aptitude 
for  art  or  science  or  industrial  pursuits,  the  far-sighted  benevo- 
lence of  the  testatrix  provided  thus  for  their  encouragement. 

The  tidings  of  her  death  were  received  as  the  news  of  a 
calamity  to  the  whole  country,  and  no  word  that  reflected  on 
her  memory  went  with  it. 

Gerard,  appointed  Francis  Graslin's  guardian,  was  required 
by  the  terms  of  the  will  to  live  at  the  chateau,  and  thither  he 
went ;  but  not  until  three  months  after  Veronique's  death  did 
he  marry  Denise  Tascheron,  in  whom  Francis  found,  as  it 
were,  a  second  mother. 


ALBERT   SAVARON 

(de  Savarus). 
To  Madame  Emile  Girardin. 

One  of  the  few  drawing-rooms  where,  under  the  Restora- 
tion, the  archbishop  of  Besancon  was  sometimes  to  be  seen, 
was  that  of  the  Baronne  de  Watteville,  to  whom  he  was  par- 
ticularly attached  on  account  of  her  religious  sentiments. 

A  word  as  to  this  lady,  the  most  important  lady  of  Besan- 
con. 

Monsieur  de  Watteville,  a  descendant  of  the  famous  Watte- 
ville, the  most  successful  and  illustrious  of  murderers  and 
renegades — his  extraordinary  adventures  are  too  much  a  part 
of  history  to  be  related  here — this  nineteenth-century  Mon- 
sieur de  Watteville  was  as  gentle  and  peaceable  as  his  ancestor 
of  the  Grand  Steele  had  been  passionate  and  turbulent.  After 
living  in  the  Comte*  like  a  wood-louse  in  the  crack  of  a  wainscot, 
he  had  married  the  heiress  of  the  celebrated  house  of  Rupt. 
Mademoiselle  de  Rupt  brought  twenty  thousand  francs  a  year 
in  the  funds  to  add  to  the  ten  thousand  francs  a  year  in  real 
estate  of  the  Baron  de  Watteville.  The  Swiss  gentleman's 
coat-of-arms  (the  Wattevilles  are  Swiss)  was  then  borne  as  an 
escutcheon  of  pretense  on  the  old  shield  of  the  Rupts.  The 
marriage,  arranged  in  1802,  was  solemnized  in  1815  after  the 
second  Restoration.  Within  three  years  of  the  birth  of  a 
daughter  all  Madame  de  Watteville's  grandparents  were 
dead  and  their  estates  wound  up.  Monsieur  de  Watteville's 
house  was  then  sold,  and  they  settled  in  the  Rue  de  la  Prefec- 
ture in  the  fine  old  mansion  of  the  Rupts,  with  an  immense 
garden  stretching  to  the  Rue  du  Perron.  Madame  de  Watte- 
*  La  Franche  Comt6. 

(285) 


286  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

ville,  devout  as  a  girl,  became  even  more  so  after  her  marriage. 
She  was  one  of  the  queens  of  the  saintly  brotherhood  which 
gives  the  upper  circles  of  Besancon  a  solemn  air  and  prudish 
manners  in  harmony  with  the  character  of  the  town. 

Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Watteville,  a  dry,  lean  man,  devoid 
of  intelligence,  looked  worn  out  without  any  one  knowing 
whereby,  for  he  enjoyed  the  profoundest  ignorance  ;  but  as  his 
wife  was  a  red-haired  woman,  and  of  a  stern  nature  that 
became  proverbial  (we  still  say  "  as  sharp  as  Madame  de  Watte- 
ville") some  wits  of  the  legal  profession  declared  that  he  had 
been  worn  against  that  rock — Rupt  is  obviously  derived  from 
rupes.  Scientific  students  of  social  phenomena  will  not  fail  to 
have  observed  that  Rosalie  was  the  only  offspring  of  the  union 
between  the  Wattevilles  and  the  Rupts. 

Monsieur  de  Watteville  spent  his  existence  in  a  handsome 
workshop  with  a  lathe  ;  he  was  a  turner  !  As  subsidiary  to  this 
pursuit,  he  took  up  a  fancy  for  making  collections.  Philo- 
sophical doctors,  devoted  to  the  study  of  madness,  regard 
this  tendency  toward  collecting  as  a  first  degree  of  mental 
aberration  when  it  is  set  on  small  things.  The  Baron  de 
Watteville  treasured  shells  and  geological  fragments  of  the 
neighborhood  of  Besancon.  Some  contradictory  folk,  espe- 
cially women,  would  say  of  Monsieur  de  Watteville,  "  He  has 
a  noble  soul !  He  perceived  from  the  first  days  of  his  married 
life  that  he  would  never  be  his  wife's  master,  so  he  threw 
himself  into  a  mechanical  occupation  and  good  living." 

The  house  of  the  Rupts  was  not  devoid  of  a  certain  magnifi- 
cence worthy  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  bore  traces  of  the  nobility 
of  the  two  families  who  had  mingled  in  1815.  The  chandeliers 
of  glass  cut  in  the  shape  of  leaves,  the  brocades,  the  damask, 
the  carpets,  the  gilt  furniture,  were  all  in  harmony  with  the 
old  liveries  and  the  old  servants.  Though  served  in  blackened 
family  plate,  round  a  looking-glass  tray  furnished  with  Dresden 
china,  the  food  was  exquisite.  The  wines  selected  by  Mon- 
sieur de  Watteville,  who,  to  occupy  his  time  and  vary  his 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  287 

employments,  was  his  own  butler,  enjoyed  a  sort  of  fame 
throughout  the  department.  Madame  de  Watteville's  fortune 
was  a  fine  one ;  while  her  husband's,  which  consisted  only  of 
the  estate  of  Rouxey,  worth  about  ten  thousand  francs  a  year, 
was  not  increased  by  inheritance.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  in 
consequence  of  Madame  de  Watteville's  close  intimacy  with 
the  archbishop,  the  three  or  four  clever  or  remarkable  abbes 
of  the  diocese  who  were  not  averse  to  good  feeding  were  very 
much  at  home  at  her  house. 

At  a  ceremonial  dinner  given  in  honor  of  I  know  not 
whose  wedding,  at  the  beginning  of  September,  1834,  when 
the  women  were  standing  in  a  circle  round  the  drawing-room 
fire,  and  the  men  in  groups  by  the  windows,  every  one 
exclaimed  with  pleasure  at  the  entrance  of  Monsieur  l'Abbe 
de  Grancey,  who  was  announced. 

"  Well,  and  the  lawsuit?  "  they  all  cried. 

"Won  !  "  replied  the  vicar-general.  "  The  verdict  of  the 
court,  from  which  we  had  no  hope,  you  know  why " 

This  was  an  allusion  to  the  members  of  the  First  Court  of 
Appeal  of  1830  ;  the  Legitimists  had  almost  all  withdrawn. 

"  The  verdict  is  in  our  favor  on  every  point,  and  reverses 
the  decision  of  the  lower  court." 

"Everybody  thought  you  were  done  for." 

"And  we  should  have  been,  but  for  me.  I  told  our  advo- 
cate to  be  off  to  Paris,  and  at  the  crucial  moment  I  was  able 
to  secure  a  new  pleader,  to  whom  we  owe  our  victory,  a 
wonderful  man " 

"At  Besancon?  "  said  Monsieur  de  Watteville,  guilelessly. 

"At  Besancon,"  replied  the  Abbe  de  Grancey. 

"Oh  yes,  Savaron,"  said  a  handsome  young  man  sitting 
near  the  Baroness,  and  named  de  Soulas. 

"He  spent  five  or  six  nights  over  it;  he  devoured  docu- 
ments and  briefs ;  he  had  seven  or  eight  interviews  of  several 
hours  with  me,"  continued  Monsieur  de  Grancey,  who  had 
just  reappeared  at  the  Hotel  de  Rupt  for  the  first  time  in 


288  ALBER  T  SA  VAR  ON. 

three  weeks.  "  In  short,  Monsieur  Savaron  has  just  com- 
pletely beaten  the  celebrated  lawyer  whom  our  adversaries 
had  sent  for  from  Paris.  This  young  man  is  wonderful,  the 
bigwigs  say.  Thus  the  chapter  is  twice  victorious ;  it  has 
triumphed  in  law  and  also  in  politics,  since  it  has  vanquished 
Liberalism  in  the  person  of  the  counsel  of  our  municipality. 
1  Our  adversaries,'  so  our  advocate  said,  *  must  not  expect  to 
find  readiness  on  all  sides  to  ruin  the  archbishoprics.'  The 
president  was  obliged  to  enforce  silence.  All  the  townsfolk  of 
Besancon  applauded.  Thus  the  possession  of  the  buildings  of 
the  old  convent  remains  with  the  Chapter  of  the  Cathedral  of 
Besancon.  Monsieur  Savaron,  however,  invited  his  Parisian 
opponent  to  dine  with  him  as  they  came  out  of  court.  He 
accepted,  saying,  *  Honor  to  every  conqueror,'  and  com- 
plimented him  on  his  success  without  bitterness." 

"And  where  did  you  unearth  this  lawyer?"  said  Madame 
de  Watteville.     "  I  never  heard  his  name  before." 

"Why,  you  can  see  his  windows  from  here,"  replied  the 
vicar-general.  "  Monsieur  Savaron  lives  in  vhe  Rue  du  Per- 
ron ;  the  garden  of  his  house  joins  on  to  youn;." 

"But  he  is  not  a  native  of  the  county,"  said  Monsieur  de 
Watteville. 

"  So  little  is  he  a  native  of  any  place,  that  no  one  knows 
where  he  comes  from,"  said  Madame  de  Chavoncourt. 

"But  who  is  he?"  asked  Madame  de  Watteville,  taking 
the  abbe's  arm  to  go  into  the  dining-room.  "  If  he  is  a  stran- 
ger, by  what  chance  has  he  settled  at  Besancon  ?  It  is  a  strange 
fancy  for  a  barrister." 

"  Very  strange  !  "  echoed  Amedee  de  Soulas,  whose  biog- 
raphy is  here  necessary  to  the  understanding  of  this  tale. 

In  all  ages  France  and  England  have  carried  on  an  ex- 
change of  trifles,  which  is  all  the  more  constant  because  it 
evades  the  tyranny  of  the  custom-house.  The  fashion  that  is 
called  English  in  Paris  is  called  French  in  London,  and  this 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  289 

is  reciprocal.  The  hostility  of  the  two  nations  is  suspended 
on  two  points — the  uses  of  words  and  the  fashion  of  dress. 
"  God  save  the  King,"  the  national  air  of  England,  is  a  tune 
written  by  Lulli  for  the  chorus  of  "  Esther  "  or  of  "Athalie." 
Hoops,  introduced  at  Paris  by  an  Englishwoman,  were  in- 
vented in  London,  it  is  known  why,  by  a  Frenchwoman,  the 
notorious  Duchess  of  Portsmouth.  They  were  at  first  so 
jeered  at  that  the  first  Englishwoman  who  appeared  in  them 
at  the  Tuileries  narrowly  escaped  being  crushed  by  the  crowd; 
but  they  were  adopted.  This  fashion  tyrannized  over  the 
ladies  of  Europe  for  half  a  century.  At  the  peace  of  1815, 
for  a  year,  the  long  waists  of  the  English  were  a  standing  jest; 
all  Paris  went  to  see  Pothier  and  Brunet  in  "The  Funny 
Englishwomen;"  but  in  1816  and  1817  the  belt  of  the 
Frenchwoman,  which  in  18 14  cut  her  across  the  bosom, 
gradually  descended  till  it  reached  the  hips. 

Within  ten  years  England  has  made  two  little  gifts  to  our 
language.  The  Incroyable,  the  Merveilleux,  the  Elegant,  the 
three  successors  of  the  petit-7naitre  of  discreditable  etymology, 
have  made  way  for  the  "dandy"  and  the  "lion."  The 
lion  is  not  the  parent  of  the  lionne.  The  lionne  is  due  to  the 
famous  song  by  Alfred  de  Musset — 

0  Have  you  seen  in  Barcelona 

She  that  is  my  mistress  and  my  lionne." 

There  has  been  a  fusion — or,  if  you  prefer  it,  a  confusion — 
of  the  two  words  and  the  leading  ideas.  When  an  absurdity 
can  amuse  Paris,  which  devours  as  many  masterpieces  as  ab- 
surdities, the  provinces  can  hardly  be  deprived  of  them.  So, 
as  soon  as  the  lion  paraded  Paris  with  his  mane,  his  beard 
and  mustaches,  his  waistcoats  and  his  eyeglass,  maintained  in 
its  place,  without  the  help  of  his  hands,  by  the  contraction 
of  his  cheek  and  eye-socket,  the  chief  towns  of  some  depart- 
ments had  their  sub-lions,  who  protested  by  the  smartness  of 
19 


290  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

their  trousers-straps  against  the  untidiness   of  their   fellow- 
townsmen. 

Thus,  in  1834,  Besancon  could  boast  of  a  lion,  in  the  per- 
son of  Monsieur  Amedee-Sylvain  de  Soulas,  spelt  Souleyas  at 
the  time  of  the  Spanish  occupation.  Amedee  de  Soulas  is, 
perhaps,  the  only  man  in  Besancon  descended  from  a  Spanish 
family.  Spain  sent  men  to  manage  her  business  in  the  Comte, 
but  very  few  Spaniards  settled  there.  The  Soulas  remained 
in  consequence  of  their  connection  with  Cardinal  Gran- 
velle. 

Young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  was  always  talking  of  leaving  Be- 
sancon, a  dull  town,  church-going,  and  not  literary,  a  military 
centre  and  garrison  town,  of  which  the  manners  and  customs 
and  physiognomy  are  worth  describing.  This  opinion  allowed 
of  his  lodging,  like  a  man  uncertain  of  the  future,  in  three 
very  scantily  furnished  rooms  at  the  end  of  the  Rue  Neuve, 
just  where  it  opens  into  the  Rue  de  la  Prefecture. 

Young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  could  not  possibly  live  without 
a  tiger.  This  tiger  was  the  son  of  one  of  his  farmers,  a  small 
servant  aged  fourteen,  thick-set,  and  named  Babylas.  The 
lion  dressed  his  tiger  very  smartly — a  short  tunic  coat  of  iron- 
gray  cloth,  belted  with  patent  leather,  bright  blue  plush 
breeches,  a  red  waistcoat,  polished  leather  top-boots,  a  shiny 
hat  with  black  lacing,  and  brass  buttons  with  the  arms  of 
Soulas.  Amddee  gave  this  boy  white  cotton  gloves  and  his 
washing,  and  thirty-six  francs  a  month  to  keep  himself — a 
sum  that  seemed  enormous  to  the  grisettes  of  Besancon  :  four 
hundred  and  twenty  francs  a  year  to  a  child  of  fifteen,  with- 
out counting  extras !  The  extras  consisted  in  the  price  for 
which  he  could  sell  his  turned  clothes,  a  present  when  Soulas 
exchanged  one  of  his  horses,  and  the  perquisite  of  the  manure. 
The  two  horses,  treated  with  sordid  economy,  cost,  one  with 
another,  eight  hundred  a  year.  His  bills  for  articles  received 
from  Paris,  such  as  perfumery,  cravats,  jewelry,  patent  black- 
ing, and  clothes,  ran  to  another  twelve  hundred  francs.     Add 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  291 

to  this  the  groom,  or  tiger,  the  horses,  a  very  superior  style 
of  dress,  and  six  hundred  francs  a  year  for  rent,  and  you  will 
see  a  grand  total  of  three  thousand  francs. 

Now,  Monsieur  de  Soulas'  father  had  left  him  only  four 
thousand  francs  a  year,  the  income  from  some  cottage  farms 
in  rather  bad  repair,  which  required  keeping  up,  a  charge 
which  lent  painful  uncertainty  to  the  rents.  The  lion  had 
hardly  three  francs  a  day  left  for  food,  amusements,  and 
gambling.  He  very  often  dined  out,  and  breakfasted  with 
remarkable  frugality.  When  he  was  positively  obliged  to 
dine  at  his  own  cost,  he  sent  his  tiger  to  bring  a  couple  of 
dishes  from  a  cook-shop,  never  spending  more  than  twenty- 
five  sous. 

Young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  was  supposed  to  be  a  spendthrift, 
recklessly  extravagant,  wherea's  the  poor  man  made  the  two 
ends  meet  in  the  year  with  a  keenness  and  skill  which  would 
have  done  honor  to  a  thrifty  housewife.  At  Besancon  in 
those  days  no  one  knew  how  great  a  tax  on  a  man's  capital 
were  six  francs  spent  in  polish  to  spread  on  his  boots  or 
shoes,  yellow  gloves  at  fifty  sous  a  pair,  cleaned  in  the  deepest 
secrecy  to  make  them  three  times  renewed,  cravats  costing  ten 
francs,  and  lasting  three  months,  four  waistcoats  at  twenty- 
five  francs,  and  trousers  fitting  close  to  the  boots.  How  could 
he  do  otherwise,  since  we  see  women  in  Paris  bestowing  their 
special  attention  on  simpletons  who  visit  them,  and  cut  out 
the  most  remarkable  men  by  means  of  these  frivolous  advan- 
tages, which  a  man  can  buy  for  fifteen  louis,  and  get  his  hair 
curled  and  a  fine  linen  shirt  into  the  bargain? 

If  this  unhappy  youth  should  seem  to  you  to  have  become 
a  lion  on  very  cheap  terms,  you  must  know  that  Amedee  de 
Soulas  had  been  three  times  to  Switzerland,  by  coach  and  in 
short  stages,  twice  to  Paris,  and  once  from  Paris  to  England. 
He  passed  as  a  well-informed  traveler,  and  could  say,  "In 

England,   where  I   went "     The  dowagers  of  the   town 

would  say  to  him,  "You,  who  have  been  in  England " 


292  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

He  had  been  as  far  as  Lombardy,  and  seen  the  shores  of  the 
Italian  lakes.  He  read  new  books.  Finally,  when  he  was 
cleaning  his  gloves,  the  tiger  Babylas  replied  to  callers, 
"  Monsieur  is  very  busy."  An  attempt  had  been  made  to 
withdraw  Monsieur  Amedee  de  Soulas  from  circulation  by 
pronouncing  him  "  A  man  of  advanced  ideas."  Amedee  had 
the  gift  of  uttering  with  the  gravity  of  a  native  the  common- 
places that  were  in  fashion,  which  gave  him  the  credit  of  be- 
ing one  of  the  most  enlightened  of  the  nobility.  His  person 
was  garnished  with  fashionable  trinkets,,  and  his  head  furnished 
with  ideas  hall-marked  by  the  press. 

In  1834  Amedee  was  a  young  man  of  five-and-twenty,  of 
medium  height,  dark,  with  a  very  prominent  thorax,  well- 
made  shoulders,  rather  plump  legs,  feet  already  fat,  white 
dimpled  hands,  a  beard  under  his  chin,  mustaches  worthy  of 
the  garrison,  a  good-natured,  fat,  rubicund  face,  a  flat  nose, 
and  brown  expressionless  eyes ;  nothing  Spanish  about  him. 
He  was  progressing  rapidly  in  the  direction  of  obesity,  which 
would  be  fatal  to  his  pretensions.  His  nails  were  well  kept, 
his  beard  trimmed,  the  smallest  details  of  his  dress  attended  to 
with  English  precision.  Hence  Amedee  de  Soulas  was  looked 
upon  as  the  finest  man  in  Besangon.  A  hairdresser  who  waited 
upon  him  at  a  fixed  hour — another  luxury,  costing  sixty  francs 
a  year — held  him  up  as  the  sovereign  authority  in  matters  of 
fashion  and  elegance. 

Amedee  slept  late,  dressed  and  went  out  towards  noon,  to 
go  to  one  of  his  farms  and  practice  pistol-shooting.  He 
attached  as  much  importance  to  this  exercise  as  Lord  Byron 
did  in  his  later  days.  Then  at  three  o'clock  he  came  home, 
admired  on  horseback  by  the  grisettes  and  the  ladies  who 
happened  to  be  at  their  windows.  After  an  affectation  of 
study  or  business,  which  seemed  to  engage  him  till  four,  he 
dressed  to  dine  out,  spent  the  evening  in  the  drawing-rooms 
of  the  aristocracy  of  Besancon  playing  whist,  and  went  home 
to  bed  at  eleven.     No  life  could  be  more  above-board,  more 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  203 

prudent,  or  more  irreproachable,  for  he  punctually  attended 
the  services  at  church  on  Sundays  and  holy  days. 

To  enable  you  to  understand  how  exceptional  is  such  a  life, 
it  is  necessary  to  devote  a  few  words  to  an  account  of  Besangon. 
No  town  ever  offered  more  deaf  and  dumb  resistance  to  pro- 
gress. At  Besancon  the  officials,  the  employes,  the  military, 
in  short,  every  one  engaged  in  governing  it,  sent  thither  from 
Paris  to  fill  a  post  of  any  kind,  are  all  spoken  of  by  the 
expressive  general  name  of  "The  Colony."  The  colony  is 
neutral  ground,  the  only  ground  where,  as  in  church,  the 
upper  rank  and  the  townsfolk  of  the  place  can  meet.  Here, 
fired  by  a  word,  a  look,  or  gesture,  are  started  those  feuds 
between  house  and  house,  between  a  woman  of  rank  and  a 
citizen's  wife,  which  endure  till  death,  and  widen  the  impass- 
able gulf  which  parts  the  two  classes  of  society.  With  the 
exception  of  the  Clermont-Mont-Saint-Jean,  the  Beauffremont, 
the  de  Scey,  and  the  Gramont  families,  with  a  few  others  who 
come  only  to  stay  on  their  estates  in  the  Comte,  the  aristoc- 
racy of  Besancon  dates  no  further  back  than  a  couple  of 
centuries,  the  time  of  the  conquest  by  Louis  XIV.  This 
little  world  is  essentially  of  the  parlcment,  and  arrogant,  stiff, 
solemn,  uncompromising,  haughty  beyond  all  comparison, 
even  with  the  Court  of  Vienna,  for  in  this  the  nobility  of 
Besancon  would  put  the  Viennese  drawing-rooms  to  shame. 
As  to  Victor  Hugo,  Nodier,  Fourier,  the  glories  of  the  town, 
they  are  never  mentioned,  no  one  thinks  about  them.  The 
marriages  in  these  families  are  arranged  in  the  cradle,  so 
rigidly  are  the  greatest  things  settled  as  well  as  the  smallest. 
No  stranger,  no  intruder,  ever  finds  his  way  into  one  of  these 
houses,  and  to  obtain  an  introduction  for  the  colonels  or 
officers  of  title  belonging  to  the  first  families  in  France  when 
quartered  there  requires  efforts  of  diplomacy  which  Prince 
Talleyrand  would  gladly  have  mastered  to  use  at  a  congress. 
In  1834  Amedee  was  the  only  man  in  Besancon  who  wore 
trousers-straps;  this  will  account  for  the  young  man's  being 


294  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

regarded  as  a  lion.  And  a  little  anecdote  will  enable  you  to 
understand  the  city  of  Besancon. 

Some  time  before  the  opening  of  this  story,  the  need  arose 
at  the  prefecture  for  bringing  an  editor  from  Paris  for  the 
official  newspaper,  to  enable  it  to  hold  its  own  against  the 
little  Gazette,  dropped  at  Besancon  by  the  great  Gazette,  and 
the  Patriot,  which  frisked  in  the  hands  of  the  Republicans. 
Paris  sent  them  a  young  man,  knowing  nothing  about  la 
Franche  Comte,  who  began  by  writing  them  a  leading  article 
of  the  school  of  the  Charivari.  The  chief  of  the  moderate 
party,  a  member  of  the  municipal  council,  sent  for  the  jour- 
nalist and  said  to  him,  "  You  must  understand,  monsieur,  that 
we  are  serious,  more  than  serious — tiresome  ;  we  resent  being 
amused,  and  are  furious  at  having  been  made  to  laugh.  Be  as 
hard  of  digestion  as  the  toughest  disquisitions  in  the  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes,  and  you  will  hardly  reach  the  level  of 
Besangon." 

The  editor  took  the  hint,  and  thenceforth  spoke  the  most 
incomprehensible  philosophical  lingo.  His  success  was  com- 
plete. 

If  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  did  not  fall  in  the  esteem  of 
Besancon  society,  it  was  out  of  pure  vanity  on  its  part  ;  the 
aristocracy  were  happy  to  affect  a  modern  air,  and  to  be  able 
to  show  any  Parisians  of  rank  who  visited  the  Comte  a  young 
man  who  bore  some  likeness  to  them. 

All  this  hidden  labor,  all  this  dust  thrown  in  people's  eyes, 
this  display  of  folly  and  latent  prudence,  had  an  object,  or  the 
lion  of  Besancon  would  have  been  no  son  of  the  soil.  Amedee 
wanted  to  achieve  a  good  marriage  by  proving  some  day  that 
his  farms  were  not  mortgaged,  and  that  he  had  some  savings. 
He  wanted  to  be  the  talk  of  the  town,  to  be  the  finest  and 
best-dressed  man  there,  in  order  to  win  first  the  attention, 
and  then  the  hand,  of  Mademoiselle  Rosalie  de  Watteville. 

In  1830,  at  the  time  when  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  was 
setting  up  in  business  as  a  dandy,  Rosalie  was  but  fourteen. 


ALBER  T  SA  FAR  ON.  295 

Hence,  in  1834,  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  had  reached  the 
age  when  young  persons  are  easily  struck  by  the  peculiarities 
which  attracted  the  attention  of  the  town  to  Amedee.  There 
are  many  lions  who  become  lions  out  of  self-interest  and  specu- 
lation. The  Wattevilles,  who  for  twelve  years  had  been  draw- 
ing an  income  of  fifty  thousand  francs,  did  not  spend  more 
than  four-and-twenty  thousand  francs  a  year,  while  receiving 
all  the  upper  circle  of  Besancon  every  Monday  and  Friday. 
On  Monday  they  gave  a  dinner,  on  Friday  an  evening  party. 
Thus,  in  twelve  years,  what  a  sum  must  have  accumulated 
from  twenty-six  thousand  francs  a  year,  saved  and  invested 
with  the  judgment  that  distinguishes  those  old  families  !  It 
was  very  generally  supposed  that  Madame  de  Watteville, 
thinking  she  had  land  enough,  had  placed  her  savings  in  the 
three  per  cents.,  in  1830.  Rosalie's  dowry  would  therefore, 
as  the  best  informed  opined,  amount  to  about  twenty  thousand 
francs  a  year.  So  for  the  last  five  years  Amedee  had  worked 
like  a  mole  to  get  into  the  highest  favor  of  the  severe  Baroness, 
while  laying  himself  out  to  natter  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville's 
conceit. 

Madame  de  Watteville  was  in  the  secret  of  the  devices  by 
which  Amedee  succeeded  in  keeping  up  his  rank  in  Besancon, 
and  esteemed  him  highly  for  it.  Soulas  had  placed  himself 
under  her  wing  when  she  was  thirty,  and  at  that  time  had 
dared  to  admire  her  and  make  her  his  idol ;  he  had  got  so  far 
as  to  be  allowed — he  alone  in  the  world — to  pour  out  to  her 
all  the  unseemly  gossip  which  almost  all  very  precise  women 
love  to  hear,  being  authorized  by  their  superior  virtue  to  look 
into  the  gulf  without  falling,  and  into  the  devil's  snares  with- 
out being  caught.  Do  you  understand  why  the  lion  did  not 
allow  himself  the  very  smallest  intrigue  ?  He  lived  a  public  life, 
in  the  street  so  to  speak,  on  purpose  to  play  the  part  of  a  lover 
sacrificed  to  duty  by  the  Baroness,  and  to  feast  her  mind  with 
the  sins  she  had  forbidden  to  her  senses.  A  man  who  is  so 
privileged  as  to  be  allowed  to  pour  light  stories  into  the  ear  of 


296  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

a  bigot  is  in  her  eyes  a  charming  man.  If  this  exemplary 
youth  had  better  known  the  human  heart,  he  might  without 
risk  have  allowed  himself  some  flirtations  among  the  grisettes 
of  Besancon  who  looked  up  to  him  as  a  king ;  his  affairs  might 
perhaps  have  been  all  the  more  hopeful  with  the  strict  and 
prudish  Baroness.  To  Rosalie  our  Cato  affected  prodigality  ; 
he  professed  a  life  of  elegance,  showing  her  in  perspective  the 
splendid  part  played  by  a  woman  of  fashion  in  Paris,  whither 
he  meant  to  go  as  Depute. 

All  these  manoeuvres  were  crowned  with  complete  success. 
In  1834  the  mothers  of  the  forty  noble  families  composing  the 
high  society  of  Besancon  quoted  Monsieur  Amedee  de  Soulas 
as  the  most  charming  young  man  in  the  town  ;  no  one  would 
have  dared  to  dispute  his  place  as  cock  of  the  walk  at  the 
Hotel  de  Rupt,  and  all  Besancon  regarded  him  as  Rosalie  de 
Watteville's  future  husband.  There  had  even  been  some  ex- 
change of  ideas  on  the  subject  between  the  Baroness  and  Amedee, 
to  which  the  Baron's  apparent  nonentity  gave  some  certainty. 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  to  whom  her  enormous  pros- 
pective fortune  at  that  time  lent  considerable  importance,  had 
been  brought  up  exclusively  within  the  precincts  of  the  Hotel 
de  Rupt — which  her  mother  rarely  quitted,  so  devoted  was  she 
to  her  dear  archbishop — and  severely  repressed  by  an  exclu- 
sively religious  education,  and  by  her  mother's  despotism, 
which  held  her  rigidly  to  principles.  Rosalie  knew  abso- 
lutely nothing.  It  is  knowledge  to  have  learned  geography 
from  Guthrie,  sacred  history,  ancient  history,  the  history  of 
France,  and  the  four  rules,  all  passed  through  the  sieve  of  an 
old  Jesuit?  Dancing  and  music  were  forbidden,  as  being 
more  likely  to  corrupt  life  than  to  grace  it.  The  Baroness 
taught  her  daughter  every  conceivable  stitch  in  tapestry  and 
women's  work — plain  sewing,  embroidery,  knitting.  At 
seventeen  Rosalie  had  never  read  anything  but  the  "  Lettres 
6difiantes,"  and  some  works  on  heraldry.  No  newspaper  had 
ever  defiled  her  sight.     She  attended  mass  at  the  Cathedral 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  297 

every  morning,  taken  there  by  her  mother,  came  back  to 
breakfast,  did  needlework  after  a  little  walk  in  the  garden, 
and  received  visitors,  sitting  with  the  Baroness  until  dinner- 
time. Then,  after  dinner,  excepting  on  Mondays  and  Fri- 
days, she  accompanied  Madame  de  Watteville  to  other  houses 
to  spend  the  evening,  without  being  allowed  to  talk  more 
than  the  maternal  rule  permitted. 

At  eighteen  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  was  a  slight,  thin 
girl  with  a  flat  figure,  fair,  colorless,  and  insignificant  to  the 
last  degree.  Her  eyes,  of  a  very  light  blue,  borrowed  beauty 
from  their  lashes,  which,  when  downcast,  threw  a  shadow  on 
her  cheeks.  A  few  freckles  marred  the  whiteness  of  her  fore- 
head, which  was  shapely  enough.  Her  face  was  exactly  like 
those  of  Albert  Diirer's  saints,  or  those  of  the  painters  before 
Perugino ;  the  same  plump,  though  slender  modeling,  the 
same  delicacy  saddened  by  ecstasy,  the  same  severe  guileless- 
ness.  Everything  about  her,  even  to  her  attitude,  was  sugges- 
tive of  those  virgins,  whose  beauty  is  only  revealed  in  its 
mystical  radiance  to  the  eyes  of  the  studious  connoisseur. 
She  had  fine  hands  though  red,  and  a  pretty  foot,  the  foot  of 
an  aristocrat. 

She  habitually  wore  simple  checked  cotton  dresses  ;  but  on 
Sundays  and  in  the  evenings  her  mother  allowed  her  silk. 
The  cut  of  her  frocks,  made  at  Besancon,  also  made  her  ugly, 
while  her  mother  tried  to  borrow  grace,  beauty,  and  elegance 
from  Paris  fashions ;  for  through  Monsieur  de  Soulas  she  pro- 
cured the  smallest  trifles  of  her  dress  from  there.  Rosalie 
had  never  worn  a  pair  of  silk  stockings  or  thin  boots,  but 
always  cotton  stockings  and  leather  shoes.  On  high  days  she 
was  dressed  in  a  muslin  frock,  her  hair  plainly  dressed,  and 
had  bronze  kid  shoes. 

This  education,  and  her  own  modest  demeanor,  hid  in 
Rosalie  a  spirit  of  iron.  Physiologists  and  profound  observers 
will  tell  you,  perhaps  to  your  great  astonishment,  that  tem- 
pers, characteristics,  wit,  or  genius  reappear  in  families  at  long 


298  ALBER  T  SAVARON. 

intervals,  precisely  like  what  are  known  as  hereditary  diseases. 
Thus  talent,  like  the  gout,  sometimes  skips  over  two  genera- 
tions. We  have  an  illustrious  example  of  this  phenomenon 
in  George  Sand,  in  whom  are  resuscitated  the  force,  the 
power,  and  the  imaginative  faculty  of  the  Marechal  de  Saxe, 
whose  natural  granddaughter  she  is. 

The  decisive  character  and  romantic  daring  of  the  famous 
Watteville  had  reappeared  in  the  soul  of  his  grand-niece, 
reinforced  by  the  tenacity  and  pride  of  blood  of  the  Rupts. 
But  these  qualities — or  faults,  if  you  will  have  it  so — were  as 
deeply  buried  in  this  young  girlish  soul,  apparently  so  weak 
and  yielding,  as  the  seething  lavas  within  a  hill  before  it  be- 
comes a  volcano.  Madame  de  Watteville  alone,  perhaps,  sus- 
pected this  inheritance  from  two  strains.  She  was  so  severe 
to  her  Rosalie  that  she  replied  one  day  to  the  archbishop, 
who  blamed  her  for  being  too  hard  on  the  child,  "  Leave  me 
to  manage  her,  monseigneur.  I  know  her!  She  has  more 
than  one  Beelzebub  in  her  skin  !  " 

The  Baroness  kept  all  the  keener  watch  over  her  daughter, 
because  she  considered  her  honor  as  a  mother  to  be  at  stake. 
After  all,  she  had  nothing  else  to  do.  Clotilde  de  Rupt,  at 
this  time  five-and-thirty,  and  as  good  as  widowed,  with  a 
husband  who  turned  egg-cups  in  every  variety  of  wood,  who 
set  his  mind  on  making  wheels  with  six  spokes  out  of  iron- 
wood,  and  manufactured  snuff-boxes  for  every  one  of  his 
acquaintance,  flirted  in  strict  propriety  with  Amedee  de  Soulas. 
When  this  young  man  was  in  the  house,  she  alternately  dis- 
missed and  recalled  her  daughter,  and  tried  to  detect 
symptoms  of  jealousy  in  that  youthful  soul,  so  as  to  have 
occasion  to  repress  them.  She  imitated  the  police  in  its  deal- 
ings with  the  Republicans;  but  she  labored  in  vain.  Rosalie 
showed  no  symptoms  of  rebellion.  Then  the  arid  bigot 
accused  her  daughter  of  perfect  insensibility.  Rosalie  knew 
her  mother  well  enough  to  be  sure  that  if  she  had  thought 
young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  nice,  she  would  have  drawn  down 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  299 

on  herself  a  smart  reproof.  Thus,  to  all  her  mother's  incite- 
ment she  replied  merely  by  such  phrases  as  are  wrongly  called 
Jesuitical — wrongly,  because  the  Jesuits  were  strong,  and  such 
reservations  are  the  spiked  wall  behind  which  weakness 
takes  refuge.  Then  the  mother  regarded  the  girl  as  a  dissem- 
bler. If  by  mischance  a  spark  of  the  true  nature  of  the  Watte - 
villes  and  the  Rupts  blazed  out,  the  mother  armed  herself  with 
the  respect  due  from  children  to  their  parents  to  reduce  Rosalie 
to  passive  obedience. 

This  covert  battle  was  carried  on  in  the  most  secret  seclusion 
of  domestic  life,  with  closed  doors.  The  vicar-general,  the 
dear  Abbe  Grancey,  the  friend  of  the  late  archbishop,  clever 
as  he  was  in  his  capacity  of  the  chief  Father  Confessor  of  the 
diocese,  could  not  discover  whether  the  struggle  had  stirred 
up  some  hatred  between  the  mother  and  daughter,  whether 
the  mother  was  jealous  in  anticipation,  or  whether  the  court 
Amedee  was  paying  to  the  girl  through  her  mother  had  not 
overstepped  its  due  limits.  Being  a  friend  of  the  family, 
neither  mother  nor  daughter  confessed  to  him.  Rosalie,  a 
little  too  much  harried,  morally,  about  young  de  Soulas,  could 
not  abide  him,  to  use  a  homely  phrase,  and  when  he  spoke  to 
her,  trying  to  take  her  heart  by  surprise,  she  received  him  but 
coldly.  This  aversion,  discerned  only  by  her  mother's  eye, 
was  a  constant  subject  of  admonition. 

"  Rosalie,  I  cannot  imagine  why  you  affect  such  coldness 
towards  Amedee.  Is  it  because  he  is  a  friend  of  the  family, 
and  because  we  like  him — your  father  and  I  ?  " 

'♦'Well,  mamma,"  replied  the  poor  child  one  day,  "if  I 
made  him  welcome,  should  I  not  be  still  more  in  the  wrong  ?  " 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?"  cried  Madame  de  Watte > 
ville.  "  What  is  the  meaning  of  such  words?  Your  mother 
is  unjust,  no  doubt,  and,  according  to  you,  would  be  so  in  any 
case  !  Never  let  such  an  answer  pass  your  lips  again  to  your 
mother "  and  so  forth. 

This  quarrel  lasted  three  hours  and  three-quarters.     Rosalie 


800  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

noted  the  time.  Her  mother,  pale  with  fury,  sent  her  to  her 
room,  where  Rosalie  pondered  on  the  meaning  of  this  scene 
without  discovering  it,  so  guileless  was  she.  Thus  young 
Monsieur  de  Soulas,  who  was  supposed  by  every  one  to  be  very 
near  the  end  he  was  aiming  at,  all  neckcloths  set,  and  by  dint 
of  pots  of  patent  blacking — an  end  which  required  so  much 
waxing  of  his  mustaches,  so  many  smart  waistcoats,  wore  out 
so  many  horseshoes  and  stays — for  he  wore  a  leather  vest,  the 
stays  of  the  lion — Amedee,  I  say,  was  farther  away  than  any 
chance  comer,  although  he  had  on  his  side  the  worthy  and  noble 
Abbe  de  Grancey. 

"  Madame,"  said  Monsieur  de  Soulas,  addressing  the  Baron- 
ess, while  waiting  till  his  soup  was  cool  enough  to  swallow, 
and  affecting  to  give  a  romantic  turn  to  his  narrative,  "one 
fine  morning  the  mail-coach  dropped  at  the  Hotel  National  a 
gentleman  from  Paris,  who,  after  seeking  apartments,  made  up 
his  mind  in  favor  of  the  first  floor  in  Mademoiselle  Galard's 
house,  Rue  du  Perron.  Then  the  stranger  went  straight  to 
the  Mairie,  and  had  himself  registered  as  a  resident  with  all 
political  qualifications.  Finally,  he  had  his  name  entered  on 
the  list  of  barristers  to  the  court,  showing  his  title  in  due 
form,  and  he  left  his  card  on  all  his  new  colleagues,  the 
ministerial  officials,  the  councilors  of  the  court  and  the  mem- 
bers of  the  bench,  with  the  name,  *  Albert  Savaron.'  " 

"The  name  of  Savaron  is  famous,"  said  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville,  who  was  strong  in  heraldic  information.  "  The 
Savarons  of  Savarus  are  one  of  the  oldest,  noblest,  and  richest 
families  in  Belgium." 

"  He  is  a  Frenchman,  and  no  man's  son,"  replied  Amedee 
de  Soulas.  "If  he  wishes  to  bear  the  arms  of  the  Savarons 
of  Savarus,  he  must  add  a  bar-sinister.  There  is  no  one  left 
of  the  Brabant  family  but  a  Mademoiselle  de  Savarus,  a  rich 
heiress,  and  unmarried." 

"  The  bar-sinister  is,  of  course,  the  badge  of  a  bastard ; 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  301 

but  the  bastard  of  a  Comte  de  Savarus  is  noble,"  answered 
Rosalie. 

"  Enough,  that  will  do,  mademoiselle  !  "  said  the  Baroness. 

"  You  insisted  on  her  learning  heraldry,"  said  Monsieur  de 
Watteville,  "and  she  knows  it  very  well." 

"  Go  on,  I  beg,  Monsieur  de  Soulas." 

"You  may  suppose  that  in  a  town  where  everything  is 
classified,  known,  pigeon-holed,  ticketed,  and  numbered,  as 
in  Besancon,  Albert  Savaron  was  received  without  hesitation 
by  the  lawyers  of  the  town.  They  were  satisfied  to  say, 
f  Here  is  a  man  who  does  not  know  his  Besancon.  Who  the 
devil  can  have  sent  him  here  ?  What  can  he  hope  to  do  ? 
Sending  his  card  to  the  judges  instead  of  calling  in  person ! 
What  a  blunder !  •  And  so,  three  days  after,  Savaron  had 
ceased  to  exist.  He  took  as  his  servant  old  Monsieur  Galard's 
man — Galard  being  dead — Jerome,  who  can  cook  a  little. 
Albert  Savaron  was  all  the  more  completely  forgotten,  because 
no  one  had  seen  him  or  met  him  anywhere." 

"  Then,  does  he  not  go  to  mass?  "  asked  Madame  de  Cha- 
voncourt. 

"  He  goes  on  Sundays  to  Saint-Pierre,  but  to  the  early 
service,  at  eight  in  the  morning.  He  rises  every  night  between 
one  and  two  in  the  morning,  works  till  eight,  has  his  break- 
fast, and  then  goes  on  working.  He  walks  in  his  garden, 
going  round  fifty  or  perhaps  sixty  times;  then  he  goes  in, 
dines,  and  goes  to  bed  between  six  and  seven." 

"  How  did  you  learn  all  that?"  Madame  de  Chavoncourt 
asked  Monsieur  Soulas. 

"In  the  first  place,  madame,  I  live  in  the  Rue  Neuve,  at 
the  corner  of  the  Rue  du  Perron  •  I  look  out  on  the  house 
where  this  mysterious  personage  lodges ;  then,  of  course,  there 
are  communications  between  my  tiger  and  Jerome." 

"And  you  gossip  with  Babylas  !  "  exclaimed  Madame  de 
Chavoncourt. 

"  What  would  you  have  me  do  out  riding?  " 


302  ALB  EH  T  SA  VARON. 

''Well — and  how  was  it  that  you  engaged  a  stranger  for 
your  defense?  "  asked  the  Baroness,  thus  placing  the  conversa- 
tion in  the  hands  of  the  vicar-general. 

"  The  president  of  the  court  played  this  pleader  a  trick  by 
appointing  him  to  defend  at  the  assizes  a  half-witted  peasant 
accused  of  forgery.  But  Monsieur  Savaron  procured  the  poor 
man's  acquittal  by  proving  his  innocence  and  showing  that 
he  had  been  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  real  culprits.  Not 
only  did  his  line  of  defense  succeed,  but  it  led  to  the  arrest 
of  two  of  the  witnesses,  who  were  proved  guilty  and  con- 
demned. His  speech  struck  the  court  and  the  jury.  One  of 
these,  a  merchant,  placed  a  difficult  case  next  day  in  the 
hands  of  Monsieur  Savaron,  and  he  won  it.  In  the  position 
in  which  we  found  ourselves,  Monsieur  Berryer  finding  it  im- 
possible to  come  to  Besancon,  Monsieur  de  Garcenault  ad- 
vised him  to  employ  this  Monsieur  Albert  Savaron,  foretelling 
our  success.  As  soon  as  I  saw  him  and  heard  him,  I  felt  faith 
in  him,  and  I  was  not  wrong." 

"Is  he  then  so  extraordinary?"  asked  Madame  de  Cha- 
voncourt. 

M  Certainly,  madame,"  replied  the  vicar-general. 

"Well,  tell  us  about  it,"  said  Madame  de  Watteville. 

"The  first  time  I  saw  him,"  said  the  Abbe  de  Grancey, 
"  he  received  me  in  his  outer  room  next  the  ante-room — old 
Galard's  drawing-room — which  he  has  had  painted  like  old 
oak,  and  which  I  found  to  be  entirely  lined  with  law-books, 
arranged  on  shelves  also  painted  as  old  oak.  The  painting 
and  the  books  are  the  sole  decoration  of  the  room,  for  the 
furniture  consists  of  an  old  writing-table  of  carved  wood,  six 
old  armchairs  covered  with  tapestry,  window  curtains  of  gray 
stuff  bordered  with  green,  and  a  green  carpet  over  the  floor. 
The  ante-room  stove  heats  this  library  as  well.  As  I  waited 
there  I  did  not  picture  my  advocate  as  a  young  man.  But 
this  singular  setting  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  his  person  ; 
for  Monsieur  Savaron  came  out  in  a  black  merino  dressing- 


ALBER  T  SA  VAR  ON.  303 

gown  tied  with  a  red  cord,  red  slippers,  a  red  flannel  waist- 
coat, and  a  red  smoking-cap." 

"The  devil's  colors  !  "   exclaimed  Madame  de  Watteville. 

"Yes,"  said  the  abbe;  "but  a  magnificent  head.  Black 
hair  already  streaked  with  a  little  gray,  hair  like  that  of  Saint 
Peter  and  Saint  Paul  in  pictures,  with  thick  shining  curls, 
hair  as  stiff  as  horsehair;  a  round  white  throat  like  a  woman's; 
a  splendid  forehead,  furrowed  by  the  strong  median  line  which 
great  schemes,  great  thoughts,  deep  meditations  stamp  on  a 
great  man's  brow;  an  olive  complexion  marbled  with  red,  a 
square  nose,  eyes  of  flame,  hollow  cheeks,  with  two  long  lines 
betraying  much  suffering,  a  mouth  with  a  sardonic  smile,  and  a 
small  chin,  narrow,  and  too  short ;  crows'  feet  on  his  temples; 
deep-set  eyes,  moving  in  their  sockets  like  burning  balls;  but, 
in  spite  of  all  these  indications  of  a  violently  passionate  nature, 
his  manner  was  calm,  deeply  resigned,  and  his  voice  of  pene- 
trating sweetness,  which  surprised  me  in  court  by  its  easy 
flow;  a  true  orator's  voice,  now  clear  and  appealing,  some- 
times insinuating,  but  a  voice  of  thunder  when  needful,  and 
lending  itself  to  sarcasm  to  become  incisive. 

"Monsieur  Albert  Savaron  is  of  middle  height,  neither 
stout  nor  thin.     And  his  hands  are  those  of  a  prelate. 

"The  second  time  I  called  on  him  he  received  me  in  his 
bedroom,  adjoining  the  library,  and  smiled  at  my  astonish- 
ment when  I  saw  there  a  wretched  chest  of  drawers,  a  shabby 
carpet,  a  camp-bed,  and  cotton  window-curtains.  He  came 
out  of  his  private  room,  to  which  no  one  is  admitted,  as 
Jerome  informed  me ;  the  man  did  not  go  in,  but  merely 
knocked  at  the  door. 

"  The  third  time  he  was  breakfasting  in  his  library  on  the 
most  frugal  fare;  but  on  this  occasion,  as  he  had  spent  the 
night  studying  our  documents,  as  I  had  my  attorney  with  me, 
and  as  that  worthy  Monsieur  Girardet  is  long-winded,  I  had 
leisure  to  study  the  stranger.  He  certainly  is  no  ordinary 
man.     There  is  more  than  one  secret  behind  that  face,  at 


304  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

once  so  terrible  and  so  gentle,  patient  and  yet  impatient, 
broad  and  yet  hollow.  I  saw,  too,  that  he  stooped  a  little, 
like  all  men  who  have  some  heavy  burden  to  bear." 

"  Why  did  so  eloquent  a  man  leave  Paris  ?  For  what  pur- 
pose did  he  come  to  Besancon  ?  "  asked  pretty  Madame  de 
Chavoncourt.  "  Could  no  one  tell  him  how  little  chance  a 
stranger  has  of  succeeding  here  ?  The  good  folks  of  Besancon 
will  make  use  of  him,  but  they  will  not  allow  him  to  make 
use  of  them.  Why,  having  come,  did  he  make  so  little 
effort  that  it  needed  a  freak  of  the  president's  to  bring  him 
forward  ?  ' ' 

"After  carefully  studying  that  fine  head,"  said  the  abbe", 
looking  keenly  at  the  lady  who  had  interrupted  him,  in  such 
a  way  as  to  suggest  that  there  was  something  he  would  not 
tell,  "  and  especially  after  hearing  him  this  morning  reply  to 
one  of  the  bigwigs  of  the  Paris  bar,  I  believe  that  this  man, 
who  may  be  five-and-thirty,  will  by-and-by  make  a  great 
sensation." 

"  Why  should  we  discuss  him  ?  You  have  gained  your 
action,  and  paid  him,"  said  Madame  de  Watteville,  watching 
her  daughter,  who,  all  the  time  the  vicar-general  had  been 
speaking,  seemed  to  hang  on  his  lips. 

The  conversation  changed,  and  no  more  was  heard  of 
Albert  Savaron. 

The  portrait  sketched  by  the  cleverest  of  the  vicars-general 
of  the  diocese  had  all  the  greater  charm  for  Rosalie  because 
there  was  a  romance  behind  it.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life 
she  had  come  across  the  marvelous,  the  exceptional,  which 
smiles  on  every  youthful  imagination,  and  which  curiosity,  so 
eager  at  Rosalie's  age,  goes  forth  to  meet  half-way.  What  an 
ideal  being  was  this  Albert — gloomy,  unhappy,  eloquent, 
laborious,  as  compared  by  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  to  that 
chubby  fat  Count,  bursting  with  health,  paying  compliments, 
and  talking  of  the  fashions  in  the  very  face  of  the  splendor 
of  the  old  Counts  of  Rupt.     Amedee   had  cost  her  many 


ALBER T  SAVAR ON.  305 

quarrels  and  scoldings,  and,  indeed,  she  knew  him  only  too 
well ;  while  this  Albert  Savaron  offered  many  enigmas  to  be 
solved. 

"Albert  Savaron  de  Savarus,"  she  repeated  to  herself. 

Now,  to  see  him,  to  catch  sight  of  him  !  This  was  the 
desire  of  the  girl  to  whom  desire  was  hitherto  unknown.  She 
pondered  in  her  heart,  in  her  fancy,  in  her  brain,  the  least 
phrases  used  by  the  Abbe  de  Grancey,  for  all  his  words  had 
told. 

"A  fine  forehead?"  said  she  to  herself,  looking  at  the 
head  of  every  man  seated  at  the  table;  "I  do  not  see  one 
fine  one.  Monsieur  de  Souks'  is  too  prominent ;  Monsieur 
de  Grancey' s  is  fine,  but  he  is  seventy,  and  has  no  hair,  it  is 
impossible  to  see  where  his  forehead  ends." 

"  What  is  the  matter,  Rosalie;  you  are  eating  nothing?" 

"I  am  not   hungry,   mamma,"    said   she.     "A   prelate's 

hands "  she  went  on  to  herself.     "I  cannot  remember 

our  handsome  archbishop's  hands,  though  he  confirmed  me." 

Finally,  in  the  midst  of  her  coming  and  going  in  the  laby- 
rinth of  her  meditations,  she  remembered  a  lighted  window 
she  had  seen  from  her  bed,  gleaming  through  the  trees  of  the 
two  adjoining  gardens,  when  she  had  happened  to  wake  in  the 

night "Then    that  was  his   light!"   thought  she.     "I 

might  see  him  !     I  will  see  him." 

"  Monsieur  de  Grancey,  is  the  chapter's  lawsuit  quite 
settled?"  asked  Rosalie  point-blank  of  the  vicar-general,  dur- 
ing a  moment  of  silence. 

Madame  de  Watteville  exchanged  rapid  glances  with  the 
vicar-general. 

"  What  can  that  matter  to  you,  my  dear  child?  "  she  said 
to  Rosalie,  with  an  affected  sweetness  which  made  her  daughter 
cautious  for  the  rest  of  her  days. 

"It  might  be  carried  to   the  Court  of  Appeal,  but   our 
adversaries  will  think  twice  about  that,"  replied  the  abb£. 
"  I  never  could  have  believed  that  Rosalie  would  think 
20 


306  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

about  a  lawsuit  all  through  a  dinner,"  remarked  Madame  de 
Watteville. 

"Nor  I  either,"  said  Rosalie,  in  a  dreamy  way  that  made 
every  one  laugh.  "But  Monsieur  de  Grancey  was  so  full  of 
it  that  I  was  interested." 

The  company  rose  from  table  and  returned  to  the  drawing- 
room.  All  through  the  evening  Rosalie  listened  in  case 
Albert  Savaron  should  be  mentioned  again ;  but  beyond  the 
congratutations  offered  by  each  newcomer  to  the  abbe  on 
having  gained  his  suit,  to  which  no  one  added  any  praise  of 
the  advocate,  no  more  was  said  about  it.  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville  impatiently  looked  forward  to  bedtime.  She  had 
promised  herself  to  wake  at  between  two  and  three  in  the 
morning,  and  to  look  at  Albert's  dressing-room  windows. 
When  the  hour  came,  she  felt  much  pleasure  in  gazing  at  the 
glimmer  from  the  lawyer's  candles  that  shone  through  the 
trees,  now  almost  bare  of  their  leaves.  By  the  help  of  the 
strong  sight  of  a  young  girl,  which  curiosity  seems  to  make 
longer,  she  saw  Albert  writing,  and  fancied  she  could  distin- 
guish the  color  of  the  furniture,  which  she  thought  was  red. 
From  the  chimney  above  the  roof  rose  a  thick  column  of 
smoke. 

"  While  all  the  world  is  sleeping,  he  is  awake — like  God  !  " 
thought  she. 

The  education  of  girls  brings  with  it  such  serious  problems 
— for  the  future  of  a  nation  is  in  the  mother — that  the  Uni- 
versity of  France  long  since  set  itself  the  task  of  having  noth- 
ing to  do  with  it.  Here  is  one  of  these  problems:  Ought 
girls  to  be  informed  on  all  points?  Ought  their  minds  to  be 
under  restraint?  It  need  not  be  said  that  the  religious  system 
is  one  of  restraint.  If  you  enlighten  them,  you  make  them 
demons  before  their  time  ;  if  you  keep  them  from  thinking, 
you  end  in  the  sudden  explosion  so  well  shown  by  Moliere  in 
the  character  of  Agnes,  and  you  leave  this  suppressed  mind,  so 
fresh  and  clear-seeing,  as  swift  and  as  logical  as  that  of  a  sav- 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON.  307 

age,  at  the  mercy  of  an  accident.  This  inevitable  crisis  was 
brought  on  in  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  by  the  portrait 
which  one  of  the  most  prudent  abbes  of  the  Chapter  of 
Besancon  imprudently  allowed  himself  to  sketch  at  a  dinner 
party. 

Next  morning,  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  while  dressing, 
necessarily  looked  out  at  Albert  Savaron  walking  in  the  garden 
adjoining  that  of  the  Hotel  de  Rupt. 

*'  What  would  have  become  of  me,"  thought  she,  "if  he 
had  lived  anywhere  else  ?  Here  I  can,  at  any  rate,  see  him. 
What  is  he  thinking  about?  " 

Having  seen  this  extraordinary  man,  though  at  a  distance, 
the  only  man  whose  countenance  stood  forth  in  contrast  with 
crowds  of  Besancon  faces  she  had  hitherto  met  with,  Rosalie 
at  once  jumped  at  the  idea  of  getting  into  his  home,  of  ascer- 
taining the  reasons  of  so  much  mystery,  of  hearing  that  elo- 
quent voice,  of  winning  a  glance  from  those  fine  eyes.  All 
this  she  set  her  heart  on,  but  how  could  she  achieve  it? 

All  that  day  she  drew  her  needle  through  her  embroidery 
with  the  obtuse  concentration  of  a  girl  who,  like  Agnes,  seems 
to  be  thinking  of  nothing,  but  who  is  reflecting  on  things  in 
general  so  deeply  that  her  artifice  is  unfailing.  As  a  result  of 
this  profound  meditation,  Rosalie  thought  she  would  go  to 
confession.  Next  morning,  after  mass,  she  had  a  brief  inter- 
view with  the  Abbe  Giroud  at  Saint-Pierre,  and  managed 
so  ingeniously  that  the  hour  for  her  confession  was  fixed  for 
Sunday  morning  at  half-past  seven,  before  eight  o'clock  mass. 
She  committed  herself  to  a  dozen  fibs  in  order  to  find  herself, 
just  for  once,  in.  the  church  at  the  hour  when  the  lawyer  came 
to  mass.  Then  she  was  seized  with  an  impulse  of  extreme 
affection  for  her  father  ;  she  went  to  see  him  in  his  workroom, 
and  asked  him  for  all  sorts  of  information  on  the  art  of  turn- 
ing, ending  by  advising  him  to  turn  larger  pieces,  columns. 
After  persuading  her  father  to  set  to  work  on  some  twisted 
pillars,  one  of  the  difficulties  of  the  turner's  art,  she  suggested 


308  ALBERT  S AVAR  ON. 

that  he  should  make  use  of  a  large  heap  of  stones  that  lay  in  the 
middle  of  the  garden  to  construct  a  sort  of  grotto  on  which  he 
might  erect  a  little  temple  or  Belvedere  in  which  his  twisted 
pillars  could  be  used  and  shown  off  to  all  the  world. 

At  the  climax  of  the  pleasure  the  poor  unoccupied  man 
derived  from  this  scheme,  Rosalie  said,  as  she  kissed  him, 
11  Above  all,  do  not  tell  mamma  who  gave  you  the  notion; 
she  would  scold  me." 

"  Do  not  be  afraid  1  "  replied  Monsieur  de  Watteville,  who 
groaned  as  bitterly  as  his  daughter  under  the  tyranny  of  the 
terrible  descendant  of  the  Rupts. 

So  Rosalie  had  a  certain  prospect  of  seeing  ere  long  a 
charming  observatory  built,  whence  her  eyes  would  command 
the  lawyer's  private  room.  And  there  are  men  for  whose 
sake  young  girls  can  carry  out  such  master-strokes  of  di- 
plomacy, while,  for  the  most  part,  like  Albert  Savaron, 
they  know  it  not. 

The  Sunday  so  impatiently  looked  for  arrived,  and  Rosalie 
dressed  with  such  carefulness  as  made  Mariette,  the  ladies' 
maid,  smile. 

"It  is  the  first  time  I  ever  knew  mademoiselle  to  be  so 
fidgety,"  said  Mariette. 

"It  strikes  me,"  said  Rosalie,  with  a  glance  at  Mariette, 
which  brought  poppies  to  her  cheeks,  "  that  you  too  are  more 
particular  on  some  days  than  on  others." 

As  she  went  down  the  steps,  across  the  courtyard,  and 
through  the  gates,  Rosalie's  heart  beat,  as  everybody's  does 
in  anticipation  of  a  great  event.  Hitherto  she  had  never 
known  what  it  was  to  walk  in  the  streets;  for  a  moment  she 
had  felt  as  though  her  mother  must  read  her  schemes  on  her 
brow,  and  forbid  her  going  to  confession,  and  she  now  felt 
new  blood  in  her  feet,  she  lifted  them  as  though  she  trod  on 
fire.  She  had,  of  course,  arranged  to  be  with  her  confessor 
at  a  quarter-past  eight,  telling  her  mother  eight,  so  as  to  have 
about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  near  Albert,     She  got  to  church 


ALBER  T  SA  VARON.  309 

before  mass,  and  after  a  short  prayer,  went  to  see  if  the  Abbe 
Giroud  were  in  his  confessional,  simply  to  pass  the  time;  and 
she  thus  placed  herself  in  such  a  way  as  to  see  Albert  as  he 
came  into  church. 

The  man  must  have  been  atrociously  ugly  who  did  not 
seem  handsome  to  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  in  the  frame 
of  mind  produced  by  her  curiosity.  And  Albert  Savaron, 
who  was  really  very  striking,  made  all  the  more  impression 
on  Rosalie  because  his  mien,  his  walk,  his  carriage,  everything 
down  to  his  clothing,  had  the  indescribable  stamp  which  can 
only  be  expressed  by  the  word  mystery. 

He  came  in.  The  church,  till  now  gloomy,  seemed  to 
Rosalie  to  be  illuminated.  The  girl  was  fascinated  by  his 
slow  and  solemn  demeanor,  as  of  a  man  who  bears  a  world 
on  his  shoulders,  and  whose  deep  gaze,  whose  very  gestures, 
combine  to  express  a  devastating  or  absorbing  thought.  Ro- 
salie now  understood  the  vicar-general's  words  in  their  fullest 
extent.  Yes,  those  eyes  of  tawny  brown,  shot  with  golden 
lights,  covered  an  ardor  which  revealed  itself  in  sudden  flashes. 
Rosalie,  with  a  recklessness  which  Mariette  noted,  stood  in 
the  lawyer's  way,  so  as  to  exchange  glances  with  him ;  and 
this  glance  turned  her  blood,  for  it  seethed  and  boiled  as 
though  its  warmth  were  doubled. 

As  soon  as  Albert  had  taken  a  seat,  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville quickly  found  a  place  whence  she  could  see  him  perfectly 
during  all  the  time  the  abbe  might  leave  her.  When  Mariette 
said  "Here  is  Monsieur  Giroud,"  it  seemed  to  Rosalie  that 
the  interval  had  lasted  no  more  than  a  few  minutes.  By 
the  time  she  came  out  from  the  confessional,  mass  was  over. 
Albert  had  left  the  church. 

"The  vicar-general  was  right,"  thought  she.  il He  is 
unhappy.  Why  should  this  eagle — for  he  has  the  eyes  of  an 
eagle — swoop  down  on  Besancon  ?  Oh  !  I  must  know  every- 
thing !     But  how?" 

Under  the  smart  of  this  new  desire  Rosalie  set  the  stitches 

X 


810  ALBER  T  S AVAR  ON. 

of  her  worsted-work  with  exquisite  precision,  and  hid  her 
meditations  under  a  little  innocent  air,  which  shammed  sim- 
plicity to  deceive  Madame  de  Watteville, 

From  that  Sunday,  when  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  had 
met  that  look,  or,  if  you  please,  received  this  baptism  of  fire — 
a  fine  expression  of  Napoleon's  which  may  be  well  applied  to 
love — she  eagerly  promoted  the  plan  for  the  Belvedere. 

''Mamma,"  said  she  one  day  when  two  columns  were 
turned,  "  my  father  has  taken  a  singular  idea  into  his  head  ; 
he  is  turning  columns  for  a  Belvedere  he  intends  to  erect  on 
the  heap  of  stones  in  the  middle  of  the  garden.  Do  you 
approve  of  it  ?     It  seems  to  me " 

"  I  approve  of  everything  your  father  does,"  said  Madame 
de  Watteville  drily,  "  and  it  is  a  wife's  duty  to  submit  to  her 
husband  even  if  she  does  not  approve  of  his  ideas.  Why 
should  I  object  to  a  thing  which  is  of  no  importance  in  itself, 
if  it  only  amuses  Monsieur  de  Watteville  ?  " 

"Well,  because  from  thence  we  shall  see  into  Monsieur  de 
Souks'  rooms,  and  Monsieur  de  Soulas  will  see  us  when  we  are 
there.     Perhaps  remarks  may  be  made " 

"  Do  you  presume,  Rosalie,  to  guide  your  parents,  and 
think  you  know  more  than  they  do  of  life  and  the  pro- 
prieties? " 

"I  say  no  more,  mamma.  Besides,  my  father  said  that 
there  would  be  a  room  in  the  grotto,  where  it  would  be  cool, 
and  where  we  can  take  coffee." 

"  Your  father  has  had  an  excellent  idea,"  said  Madame  de 
Watteville,  who  forthwith  went  to  look  at  the  columns. 

She  gave  her  entire  approbation  to  the  Baron  de  Watteville's 
design,  while  choosing  for  the  erection  of  this  monument  a 
spot  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden,  which  could  not  be  seen 
from  Monsieur  de  Soulas'  windows,  but  whence  they  could 
perfectly  see  into  Albert  Savaron's  rooms.  A  builder  was 
sent  for,  who  undertook  to  construct  a  grotto,  of  which  the 
top  should  be  reached  by  a  path  three  feet  wide  through  the 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  311 

rock-work,  where  periwinkles  would  grow,  iris,  clematis,  ivy, 
honeysuckle,  and  Virginia  creeper.  The  Baroness  desired  that 
the  inside  should  be  lined  with  rustic  woodwork,  such  as  was 
then  the  fashion  for  flower-stands,  with  a  looking-glass  against 
the  wall,  an  ottoman  forming  a  box,  and  a  table  of  inlaid  bark. 
Monsieur  de  Soulas  proposed  that  the  floor  should  be  of 
asphalt.  Rosalie  suggested  a  hanging  chandelier  of  rustic 
wood. 

"  The  Wattevilles  are  having  something  charming  done  in 
their  garden,"  was  rumored  in  Besancon. 

"  They  are  rich,  and  can  afford  a  thousand  crowns  for  a 
whim " 

"A  thousand  crowns!"  exclaimed  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court. 

"  Yes,  a  thousand  crowns,"  cried  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas. 
"  A  man  has  been  sent  for  from  Paris  to  rusticate  the  interior, 
but  it  will  be  very  pretty.  Monsieur  de  Watteville  himself  is 
making  the  chandelier,  and  has  begun  to  carve  the  wood." 

"  Berquet  is  to  make  a  cellar  under  it,"  said  an  abbe. 

"No,"  replied  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas,  "he  is  raising 
the  kiosk  on  a  concrete  foundation,  that  it  may  not  be 
damp." 

"You  know  the  very  least  things  that  are  done  in  that 
house,"  said  Madame  de  Chavoncourt  sourly,  as  she  looked  at 
one  of  her  great  girls  waiting  to  be  married  for  a  year  past. 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  with  a  little  flush  of  pride  in 
thinking  of  the  success  of  her  Belvedere,  discerned  in  herself 
a  vast  superiority  over  every  one  about  her.  No  one  guessed 
that  a  little  girl,  supposed  to  be  a  witless  goose,  had  simply 
made  up  her  mind  to  get  a  closer  view  of  the  lawyer  Savaron's 
private  study. 

Albert  Savaron's  brilliant  defense  of  the  Cathedral  Chapter 
was  all  the  sooner  forgotten  because  the  envy  of  other  lawyers 
was  aroused.  Also,  Savaron,  faithful  to  his  seclusion,  went 
nowhere.     Having  no  friends  to  cry  him  up,  and  seeing  no 


312  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

one,  he  increased  the  chances  of  being  forgotten  which  are 
common  to  strangers  in  such  a  town  as  Besancon.  Neverthe- 
less, he  pleaded  three  times  at  the  commercial  tribunal  in 
three  knotty  cases  which  had  to  be  carried  to  the  superior 
court.  He  thus  gained  as  clients  four  of  the  chief  merchants 
of  the  place,  who  discerned  in  him  so  much  good  sense  and 
sound  legal  discernment  that  they  placed  their  claims  in  his 
hands. 

On  the  day  when  the  Watteville  family  inaugurated  the 
Belvedere,  Savaron  also  was  founding  a  monument.  Thanks 
to  the  connections  he  had  obscurely  formed  among  the  upper 
class  of  merchants  in  Besancon,  he  was  starting  a  fortnightly 
paper,  called  the  Eastern  Review,  with  the  help  of  forty 
shares  of  five  hundred  francs  each,  taken  up  by  his  ten  first 
clients,  on  whom  he  had  impressed  the  necessity  for  promo- 
ting the  interests  of  Besancon,  the  town  where  the  traffic 
should  meet  between  Mulhouse  and  Lyons,  and  the  chief 
centre  between  Mulhouse  and  the  Rhone. 

To  compete  with  Strasbourg,  was  it  not  needful  that  Besan- 
con should  become  a  focus  of  enlightenment  as  well  as  of 
trade?  The  leading  questions  relating  to  the  interests  of 
Eastern  France  could  only  be  dealt  with  in  a  review.  What 
a  glorious  task  to  rob  Strasbourg  and  Dijon  of  their  literary 
importance,  to  bring  light  to  the  East  of  France,  and  compete 
with  the  centralizing  influence  of  Paris  !  These  reflections, 
put  forward  by  Albert,  were  repeated  by  the  ten  merchants, 
who  believed  them  to  be  their  own. 

Monsieur  Savaron  did  not  commit  the  blunder  of  putting  his 
name  in  front ;  he  left  the  finances  of  the  concern  to  his  chief 
client,  Monsieur  Boucher,  connected  by  marriage  with  one  of 
the  great  publishers  of  important  ecclesiastical  works  ;  but  he 
kept  the  editorship,  with  a  share  of  the  profits  as  founder. 
The  commercial  interest  appealed  to  Dole,  to  Dijon,  to 
Salins,  to  Neufchatel,  to  the  Jura,  Bourg,  Nantua,  Lous-le- 
Saulnier.     The  concurrence  was  invited  of  the  learning  and 


ALBERT  SAVAROtf.  313 

energy  of  every  scientific  student  in  the  districts  of  le  Bugey, 
la  Bresse,  and  Franche  Comte.  By  the  influence  of  com- 
mercial interests  and  common  feeling,  five  hundred  sub- 
scribers were  booked  in  consideration  of  the  low  price  :  the 
Review  cost  eight  francs  a  quarter. 

To  avoid  hurting  the  conceit  of  the  provincials  by  refusing 
their  articles,  the  lawyer  hit  on  the  good  idea  of  suggesting  a 
desire  for  the  literary  management  of  this  Review  to  Monsieur 
Boucher's  eldest  son,  a  young  man  of  two-and-twenty,  very 
eager  for  fame,  to  whom  the  snares  and  woes  of  literary 
responsibilities  were  utterly  unknown.  Albert  quietly  kept 
the  upper  hand,  and  made  Alfred  Boucher  his  devoted 
adherent.  Alfred  was  the  only  man  in  Besancon  with  whom 
the  king  of  the  bar  was  on  familiar  terms.  Alfred  came  in  the 
morning  to  discuss  the  articles  for  the  next  number  with 
Albert  in  the  garden.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  trial  num- 
ber contained  a  "Meditation"  by  Alfred,  which  Savaron 
approved.  In  his  conversations  with  Alfred,  Albert  would 
let  drop  some  great  ideas,  subjects  for  articles  of  which 
Alfred  availed  himself.  And  thus  the  merchant's  son  fancied 
he  was  making  capital  out  of  the  great  man.  To  Alfred, 
Albert  was  a  man  of  genius,  of  profound  politics.  The  com- 
mercial world,  enchanted  at  the  success  of  the  Review,  had  to 
pay  up  only  three-tenths  of  their  shares.  Two  hundred  more 
subscribers,  and  the  periodical  would  pay  a  dividend  to  the 
shareholders  of  five  per  cent.,  the  editor  remaining  unpaid. 
This  editing,  indeed,  was  beyond  price. 

After  the  third  number  the  Review  was  recognized  for  ex- 
change by  all  the  papers  published  in  France,  which  Albert 
henceforth  read  at  home.  This  third  number  included  a  tale 
signed  "A.  S.,"  and  attributed  to  the  famous  lawyer.  In 
spite  of  the  small  attention  paid  by  the  higher  circle  of 
Besancon  to  the  Review,  which  was  accused  of  liberal  views, 
this,  the  first  novel  produced  in  the  county,  came  under  dis- 
cussion that  mid-winter  at  Madame  de  Chavoncourt's. 


414  ALBERT  SAVAKON, 

"Papa,"  said  Rosalie,  "  a  Review  is  published  in  Besan- 
con  ;  you  ought  to  take  it  in ;  and  keep  it  in  your  room, 
for  mamma  would  not  let  me  read  it,  but  you  will  lend  it  to 
me. 

Monsieur  de  Watteville,  eager  to  obey  his  dear  Rosalie, 
who  for  the  last  five  months  had  given  him  so  many  proofs 
of  filial  affection — Monsieur  de  Watteville  went  in  person 
to  subscribe  for  a  year  to  the  Eastern  Review  and  loaned 
the  four  numbers  already  out  to  his  daughter.  In  the  course 
of  the  night  Rosalie  devoured  the  tale — the  first  she  had  ever 
read  in  her  life — but  she  had  only  known  life  for  two  months 
past.  Hence  the  effect  produced  on  her  by  this  work  must 
not  be  judged  by  ordinary  rules.  Without  prejudice  of  any 
kind  as  to  the  greater  or  less  merit  of  this  composition  from 
the  pen  of  a  Parisian  who  had  thus  imported  into  the  province 
the  manner,  the  brilliancy,  if  you  will,  of  the  new  literary 
school,  it  could  not  fail  to  be  a  masterpiece  to  a  young  girl 
abandoning  all  her  intelligence  and  her  innocent  heart  to  her 
first  reading  of  this  kind. 

Also,  from  what  she  had  heard  said,  Rosalie  had  by  intuition 
conceived  a  notion  of  it  which  strangely  enhanced  the  interest 
of  this  novel.  She  hoped  to  find  in  it  the  sentiments,  and 
perhaps  something  of  the  life  of  Albert.  From  the  first  pages 
this  opinion  took  so  strong  a  hold  on  her,  that,  after  reading 
the  fragment  to  the  end,  she  was  certain  that  it  was  no  mistake. 
Here,  then,  is  this  confession,  in  which,  according  to  the 
critics  of  Madame  de  Chavoncourt's  drawing-room,  Albert 
had  imitated  some  modern  writers,  who,  for  lack  of  inventive- 
ness, relate  their  private  joys,  their  private  griefs,  or  the  mys- 
terious events  of  their  own  life: 

Ambition  for  Love's  Sake. 

In  1823  two  young  men,  having  agreed  as  a  plan  for  a  holi- 
day to  make  a  tour  through  Switzerland,  set  out  from  Lucerne 


ALBERT  SAVAROM,  ffl 

One  fine  morning  in  the  month  of  July  in  a  boat  pulled  by 
three  oarsmen.  They  started  for  Fluelen,  intending  to  stop 
at  every  notable  spot  on  the  lake  of  the  four  cantons.  The 
views  which  shut  in  the  waters  on  the  way  from  Lucerne  to 
Fluelen  offer  every  combination  that  the  most  exacting  fancy 
can  demand  of  mountains  and  rivers,  lakes  and  rocks,  brooks, 
and  pastures,  trees,  and  torrents.  Here  are  austere  solitudes 
and  charming  headlands,  smiling  and  trimly  kept  meadows, 
forests  crowning  perpendicular  granite  cliffs  like  plumes, 
deserted  but  verdant  reaches  opening  out,  and  valleys  whose 
beauty  seems  the  lovelier  in  the  dreamy  distance. 

As  they  passed  the  pretty  hamlet  of  Gersau,  one  of  the 
friends  looked  for  a  long  time  at  a  wooden  house  which  seemed 
to  have  been  recently  built,  enclosed  by  a  paling,  and  stand- 
ing on  a  promontory,  almost  bathed  by  the  waters.  As  the  boat 
rowed  past,  a  woman's  head  was  raised  against  the  background 
of  the  room  on  the  upper  story  of  this  house,  to  admire  the 
effect  of  the  boat  on  the  lake.  One  of  the  young  men  met 
the  glance  thus  indifferently  given  by  the  unknown  fair  one. 

"  Let  us  stop  here,"  said  he  to  his  friend.  "  We  meant  to 
make  Lucerne  our  headquarters  for  seeing  Switzerland  ;  you 
will  not  take  it  amiss,  Leopold,  if  I  change  my  mind  and  stay 
here  to  take  charge  of  our  possessions.  Then  you  can  go 
where  you  please;  my  journey  is  ended.  Pull  to  land,  men, 
and  put  us  out  at  this  village ;  we  will  breakfast  here.  I  will 
go  back  to  Lucerne  to  fetch  all  our  luggage,  and  before  you 
leave  you  will  know  in  which  house  I  take  a  lodging,  where 
you  will  find  me  on  your  return." 

"Here  or  at  Lucerne,"  replied  Leopold,  "the  difference 
is  not  so  great  that  I  need  hinder  you  from  following  your 
whim." 

These  two  youths  were  friends  in  the  truest  sense  of  the 
word.  They  were  of  the  same  age ;  they  had  learned  at  the 
same  school ;  and  after  studying  the  law,  they  were  spending 
their  holiday  in  the  classical  tour  in  Switzerland.     Leopold, 


316  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

by  his  father's  determination,  was  already  pledged  to  a  place 
in  a  notary's  office  in  Paris.  His  spirit  of  rectitude,  his  gen- 
tleness, and  the  coolness  of  his  senses  and  his  brain,  guaran- 
teed him  to  be  a  docile  pupil.  Leopold  could  see  himself  a 
notary  in  Paris:  his  life  lay  before  him  like  one  of  the  high- 
roads that  cross  the  plains  of  France,  and  he  looked  along  its 
whole  length  with  philosophical  resignation. 

The  character  of  his  companion,  whom  we  will  call  Ro- 
dolphe,  presented  a  strong  contrast  with  Leopold's,  and  their 
antagonism  had  no  doubt  had  the  result  of  tightening  the 
bond  that  united  them.  Rodolphe  was  the  natural  son  of  a 
man  of  rank,  who  was  carried  off  by  a  premature  death  before 
he  could  make  any  arrangements  for  securing  the  means  of 
existence  to  a  woman  he  fondly  loved  and  to  Rodolphe* 
Thus  cheated  by  a  stroke  of  fate,  Rodolphe' s  mother  had  re- 
course to  a  heroic  measure.  She  sold  everything  she  owed  to 
the  munificence  of  her  child's  father  for  a  sum  of  more  than 
a  hundred  thousand  francs,  bought  with  it  a  life  annuity  for 
herself  at  a  high  rate,  and  thus  acquired  an  income  of  about 
fifteen  thousand  francs,  resolving  to  devote  the  whole  of  it  to 
the  education  of  her  son,  so  as  to  give  him  all  the  personal 
advantages  that  might  help  to  make  his  fortune,  while  saving, 
by  strict  economy,  a  small  capital  to  be  his  when  he  came  of 
age.  It  was  bold  ;  it  was  counting  on  her  own  life  ;  but  with- 
out this  boldness  the  good  mother  would  certainly  have  found 
it  impossible  to  live  and  to  bring  her  child  up  suitably,  and 
he  was  her  only  hope,  her  future,  the  spring  of  all  her  joys. 

Rodolphe,  the  son  of  a  most  charming  Parisian  woman, 
and  a  man  of  mark,  a  nobleman  of  Brabant,  was  cursed  with 
extreme  sensitiveness.  From  his  infancy  he  had  in  every- 
thing shown  a  most  ardent  nature.  In  him  mere  desire  be- 
came a  guiding  force  and  the  motive  power  of  his  whole  being, 
the  stimulus  to  his  imagination,  the  reason  of  his  actions. 
Notwithstanding  the  pains  taken  by  a  clever  mother,  who 
was  alarmed  when  she  detected  this  predisposition,  Rodolphe 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  317 

'wished  for  things  as  a  poet  imagines,  as  a  mathematician  cal- 
culates, as  a  painter  sketches,  as  a  musician  creates  melodies. 
Tender-hearted,  like  his  mother,  he  dashed  with  inconceivable 
violence  and  impetus  of  thought  after  the  object  of  his  desires ; 
he  annihilated  time.  While  dreaming  of  the  fulfillment  of 
his  schemes,  he  always  overlooked  the  means  of  attainment. 
"When  my  son  has  children, "  said  his  mother,  "he  will 
want  them  born  grown  up." 

This  fine  frenzy,  carefully  directed,  enabled  Rodolphe  to 
achieve  his  studies  with  brilliant  results,  and  to  become  what 
the  English  call  an  accomplished  gentleman.  His  mother 
was  then  proud  of  him,  though  still  fearing  a  catastrophe  if 
ever  a  passion  should  possess  a  heart  at  once  so  tender  and  so 
susceptible,  so  vehement  and  so  kind.  Therefore,  the  judi- 
cious mother  had  encouraged  the  friendship  which  bound 
Leopold  to  Rodolphe  and  Rodolphe  to  Leopold,  since  she 
saw  in  the  cold  and  faithful  young  notary  a  guardian,  a  com- 
rade, who  might  to  a  certain  extent  take  her  place  if  by  some 
misfortune  she  should  be  lost  to  her  son.  Rodolphe's  mother, 
still  handsome  at  three-and-forty,  had  inspired  Leopold  with 
an  ardent  passion.  This  circumstance  made  the  two  young 
men  even  more  intimate. 

So  Leopold,  knowing  Rodolphe  well,  was  not  surprised  to 
find  him  stopping  at  a  village  and  giving  up  the  projected 
journey  to  Saint-Gothard,  on  the  strength  of  a  single  glance 
at  the  upper  window  of  a  house.  While  breakfast  was  pre- 
pared for  them  at  the  Swan  Inn,  the  friends  walked  round  the 
hamlet  and  came  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  pretty  new  house; 
here,  while  gazing  about  him  and  talking  to  the  inhabitants, 
Rodolphe  discovered  the  residence  of  some  decent  folk,  who 
were  willing  to  take  him  as  a  boarder,  a  very  frequent  custom 
in  Switzerland.  They  offered  him  a  bedroom  looking  over 
the  lake  and  the  mountains,  and  whence  he  had  a  view  of  one 
of  those  immense  sweeping  reaches  which,  in  this  lake,  are 
the  admiration  of  every  traveler.     This  house  was  divided  by 


318  ALBERT  S 'AVAR ON. 

a  roadway  and  a  little  creek  from  the  new  house,  where  Ro- 
dolphe  had  caught  sight  of  the  unknown  fair  one's  face. 

For  a  hundred  francs  a  month  Rodolphe  was  relieved  of  all 
thought  for  the  necessaries  of  life.  But,  in  consideration  of 
the  outlay  the  Stopfer  couple  expected  to  make,  they  bar- 
gained for  three  months'  residence  and  a  month's  payment  in 
advance.  Rub  a  Swiss  ever  so  little,  and  you  find  the  usurer. 
After  breakfast,  Rodolphe  at  once  made  himself  at  home  by 
depositing  in  his  room  such  property  as  he  had  brought  with 
him  for  the  journey  to  the  Saint-Gothard,  and  he  watched 
Leopold  as  he  set  out,  moved  by  the  spirit  of  routine,  to  carry 
out  the  excursion  for  himself  and  his  friend.  When  Rodolphe, 
sitting  on  a  fallen  rock  on  the  shore,  could  no  longer  see 
Leopold's  boat,  he  turned  to  examine  the  new  house  with 
stolen  glances,  hoping  to  see  the  fair  unknown.  Alas  !  he 
went  in  without  its  having  given  a  sign  of  life.  During  din- 
ner, in  the  company  of  Monsieur  and  Madame  Stopfer, 
retired  coopers  from  Neufchatel,  he  questioned  them  as  to 
the  neighborhood,  and  ended  by  learning  all  he  wanted  to 
know  about  the  lady,  thanks  to  his  hosts'  loquacity;  for  they 
were  ready  to  pour  out  their  budget  of  gossip  without  any 
pressing. 

The  fair  stranger's  name  was  Fanny  Lovelace.  This  name 
(pronounced  Loveless")  is  that  of  an  old  English  family,  but 
Richardson  has  given  it  to  a  creation  whose  fame  eclipses  all 
others  !  Miss  Lovelace  had  come  to  settle  by  the  lake  for 
her  father's  health,  the  physicians  having  recommended  him 
the  air  of  Lucerne.  These  two  English  people  had  arrived 
with  no  other  servant  than  a  little  girl  of  fourteen,  a  dumb 
child,  much  attached  to  Miss  Fanny,  on  whom  she  waited 
very  intelligently,  and  had  settled,  two  winters  since,  with 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Bergmann,  the  retired  head-gardeners 
of  his  excellency  Count  Borromeo  of  Isola  Bella  and  Isola 
Madre  in  the  Lago  Maggiore.  These  Swiss,  who  were  pos- 
sessed of  an  income  of  about  a  thousand  crowns  a  year,  had 


ALBER T  SAVAR ON.  319 

let  the  top  story  of  their  house  to  the  Lovelaces  for  three 
years,  at  a  rent  of  two  hundred  francs  a  year.  Old  Lovelace, 
a  man  of  ninety,  and  much  broken,  was  too  poor  to  allow 
himself  any  gratifications,  and  very  rarely  went  out ;  his 
daughter  worked  to  maintain  him,  translating  English  books, 
and  writing  some  herself,  it  was  said.  The  Lovelaces  could 
not  afford  to  hire  boats  to  row  on  the  lake,  or  horses  and 
guides  to  explore  the  neighborhood. 

Poverty  demanding  such  privation  as  this  excites  all  the 
greater  compassion  among  the  Swiss,  because  it  deprives  them 
of  a  chance  of  profit.  The  cook  of  the  establishment  fed 
the  three  English  boarders  for  a  hundred  francs  a  month 
inclusive.  In  Gersau  it  was  generally  believed,  however,  that 
the  gardener  and  his  wife,  in  spite  of  their  pretensions,  used 
the  cook's  name  as  a  screen  to  net  the  little  profits  of  this 
bargain.  The  Bergmanns  had  made  beautiful  gardens  round 
their  house,  and  had  built  a  hothouse.  The  flowers,  the 
fruit,  and  the  botanical  rarities  of  this  spot  were  what  had 
induced  the  young  lady  to  settle  on  it  as  she  passed  through 
Gersau.  Miss  Fanny  was  said  to  be  nineteen  years  old  ;  she 
was  the  old  man's  youngest  child,  and  the  object  of  his  adula' 
tion.  About  two  months  prior  she  had  hired  a  piano  from 
Lucerne,  for  she  seemed  to  be  crazy  about  music,  his  hosts 
informed  him. 

"She  loves  flowers  and  music,  and  she  is  unmarried!" 
thought  Rodolphe  ;  "  what  good  luck  !  " 

The  next  day  Rodolphe  went  to  ask  leave  to  visit  the  hot- 
houses and  gardens,  which  were  beginning  to  be  somewhat 
famous.  The  permission  was  not  immediately  granted.  The 
retired  gardeners  asked,  strangely  enough,  to  see  Rodolphe's 
passport ;  it  was  sent  to  them  at  once.  The  paper  was  not  re- 
turned to  him  till  next  morning,  by  the  hands  of  the  cook, 
who  expressed  her  master's  pleasure  in  showing  him  their 
place.  Rodolphe  went  to  the  Bergmanns,  not  without  a  cer- 
tain  trepidation,  known  only  to  persons  of  strong  feelings, 


320  ALBERT  S AVAR  ON. 

who  go  through  as  much  passion  in  a  moment  as  some  men 
experience  in  a  whole  lifetime. 

After  dressing  himself  carefully  to  gratify  the  old  gardeners 
of  the  Borromean  Islands,  whom  he  regarded  as  the  warders 
of  his  treasure,  he  went  all  over  the  grounds,  looking  at  the 
house  now  and  again,  but  with  much  caution  ;  the  old  couple 
treated  him  with  evident  distrust.  But  his  attention  was  soon 
attracted  by  the  little  English  deaf-mute,  in  whom  his  discern- 
ment, though  young  as  yet,  enabled  him  to  recognize  a  girl 
of  African,  or  at  least  of  Sicilian  origin.  The  child  had  the 
golden-brown  color  of  a  Havana  cigar,  eyes  of  fire,  Armenian 
eyelids  with  lashes  of  very  un-British  length,  hair  blacker  than 
black;  and  under  this  almost  olive  skin,  sinews  of  extraordi- 
nary strength  and  feverish  alertness.  She  looked  at  Rodolphe 
with  amazing  curiosity  and  effrontery,  watching  his  every 
movement. 

"To  whom  does  that  little  Moresco  belong?"  he  asked 
worthy  Madame  Bergmann. 

"  To  the  English,"  Monsieur  Bergmann  replied. 

"  But  she  never  was  born  in  England  !  " 

"They  may  have,  perhaps,  brought  her  from  the  Indies," 
said  Madame  Bergmann. 

"I  have  been  told  that  Miss  Lovelace  is  fond  of  music.  I 
should  be  delighted  if,  during  the  residence  by  the  lake  to 
which  I  am  condemned  by  my  doctor's  orders,  she  would 
allow  me  to  join  her." 

"  They  receive  no  one,  and  will  not  see  anybody,"  said  the 
old  gardener. 

Rodolphe  bit  his  lips  and  went  away,  without  having  been 
invited  into  the  house,  or  taken  into  the  part  of  the  garden 
that  lay  between  the  front  of  the  house  and  the  shore  of  the 
little  promontory.  On  that  side  the  house  had  a  balcony 
above  the  first  floor,  made  of  wood,  and  covered  by  the  roof, 
which  projected  deeply  like  the  roof  of  a  chalet  on  all  four 
sides  of  the  building,  in  the  Swiss  fashion.     Rodolphe  had 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  321 

loudly  praised  the  elegance  of  this  arrangement,  and  talked 
of  the  view  from  that  balcony,  but  all  in  vain.  When  he  had 
taken  leave  of  the  Bergmanns  it  struck  him  that  he  was  a 
simpleton,  like  any  man  of  spirit  and  imagination  disappointed 
of  the  result  of  a  plan  which  he  had  believed  would  succeed. 

In  the  evening  he,  of  course,  went  out  in  a  boat  on  the 
lake,  round  and  about  the  spit  of  land,  to  Brunnen  and  to 
Schwytz,  and  came  in  at  nightfall.  From  afar  he  saw  the 
window  open  and  brightly  lighted ;  he  heard  the  sound  of  a 
piano  and  the  tones  of  an  exquisite  voice.  He  made  the 
boatmen  stop,  and  gave  himself  up  to  the  pleasure  of  listening 
to  an  Italian  air  delightfully  sung.  When  the  singing  ceased, 
Rodolphe  landed  and  sent  away  the  boat  and  rowers.  At  the 
cost  of  wetting  his  feet,  he  went  to  sit  down  under  the  water- 
worn  granite  shelf  crowned  by  a  thick  hedge  of  thorny  acacia, 
by  the  side  of  which  ran  a  long  lime  avenue  in  the  Berg- 
manns' garden.  By  the  end  of  an  hour  he  heard  steps  and 
voices  just  above  him,  but  the  words  that  reached  his  ears 
were  all  Italian,  and  spoken  by  two  women. 

He  took  advantage  of  the  moment  when  the  two  speakers 
were  at  one  end  of  the  walk  to  slip  noiselessly  to  the  other. 
After  half  an  hour  of  struggling  he  got  to  the  end  of  the 
avenue,  and  there  took  up  a  position  whence,  without  being 
seen  or  heard,  he  could  watch  the  two  women  without  being 
observed  by  them  as  they  came  towards  him.  What  was  Ro- 
dolphe's  amazement  on  recognizing  the  deaf-mute  as  one  of 
them  ;  she  was  talking  to  Miss  Lovelace  in  Italian. 

It  was  now  eleven  o'clock  at  night.  The  stillness  was  so 
perfect  on  the  lake  and  around  the  dwelling  that  the  two 
women  must  have  thought  themselves  safe ;  in  all  Gersau 
there  could  be  no  eyes  open  but  theirs.  Rodolphe  supposed 
that  the  girl's  dumbness  must  be  a  necessary  deception. 
From  the  way  in  which  they  both  spoke  Italian,  Rodolphe 
suspected  that  it  was  the  mother  tongue  of  both  girls,  and 
concluded  that  the  English  name  also  hid  some  disguise. 


322  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

"They  are  Italian  refugees,"  said  he  to  himself,  "  outlaws 
in  fear  of  the  Austrian  or  Sardinian  police.  The  young  lady 
waits  till  it  is  dark  to  walk  and  talk  in  security." 

He  lay  down  by  the  side  of  the  hedge,  and  crawled  like  a 
snake  to  find  a  way  between  two  acacia  shrubs.  At  the  risk 
of  leaving  his  coat  behind  him,  or  tearing  deep  scratches  in 
his  back,  he  got  through  the  hedge  when  the  so-called  Miss 
Fanny  and  her  pretended  deaf-and-dumb  maid  were  at  the 
other  end  of  the  path ;  then,  when  they  had  come  within 
twenty  yards  of  him  without  seeing  him,  for  he  was  in  the 
shadow  of  the  hedge,  and  the  moon  was  shining  brightly,  he 
suddenly  rose. 

"  Fear  nothing,"  said  he  in  French  to  the  Italian  girl,  "  I 
am  not  a  spy.  You  are  refugees,  I  have  guessed  that.  I  am 
a  Frenchman  whom  one  look  from  you  has  fixed  at  Gersau." 

Rodolphe,  startled  by  the  acute  pain  caused  by  some  steel 
instrument  piercing  his  side,  fell  like  a  log. 

"  Nel  lago  con  pieira  /"  said  the  terrible  dumb  girl. 

"  Oh,  Gina !  "  exclaimed  the  Italian. 

"She  has  missed  me,"  said  Rodolphe,  pulling  from  the 
wound  a  stiletto,  which  had  been  turned  by  one  of  the  false 
ribs.  "  But  a  little  higher  up  it  would  have  been  deep  in  my 
heart.  I  was  wrong,  Francesca,"  he  went  on,  remembering 
the  name  he  had  heard  little  Gina  repeat  several  times;  "I 
owe  her  no  grudge,  do  not  scold  her.  The  happiness  of 
speaking  to  you  is  well  worth  the  prick  of  a  stiletto.  Only 
show  me  the  way  out ;  I  must  get  back  to  the  Stopfers'  house. 
Be  easy ;  I  shall  tell  nothing." 

Francesca,  recovering  from  her  astonishment,  helped  Ro- 
dolphe to  rise,  and  said  a  few  words  to  Gina,  whose  eyes  filled 
with  tears.  The  two  girls  made  him  sit  down  on  a  bench  and 
take  off  his  coat,  his  waistcoat,  and  his  cravat.  Then  Gina 
opened  his  shirt  and  sucked  the  wound  strongly.  Francesca, 
who  had  left  them,  returned  with  a  large  piece  of  sticking- 
plaster,  which  she  applied  to  the  wound. 


ALBER  T  SA  VAR  OX.  323 

"  You  can  walk  now  as  far  as  your  house,"  she  said. 

Each  took  an  arm,  and  Rodolphe  was  conducted  to  a  side 
gate,  of  which  the  key  was  in  Francesca's  apron  pocket. 

"  Does  Gina  speak  French  ?  "  said  Rodolphe  to  Francesca. 

"No.  But  do  not  excite  yourself,"  replied  Francesca  with 
some  impatience. 

"Let  me  look  at  you,"  said  Rodolphe  pathetically,  "for  it 
miy  be  long  before  I  am  able  to  come  again " 

H.e  leaned  against  one  of  the  gate-posts  contemplating  the 
beautiful  Italian,  who  allowed  him  to  gaze  at  her  for  a  moment 
under  the  sweetest  silence  and  the  sweetest  night  that  ever, 
perhaps,  shone  on  this  lake,  the  king  of  these  beautiful  Swiss 
lakes. 

Francesca  was  quite  of  the  classic  Italian  type,  and  such  as 
imagination  supposes  or  pictures,  or,  if  you  will,  dreams,  that 
Italian  women  are.  What  first  struck  Rodolphe  was  the  grace 
and  elegance  of  a  figure  evidently  powerful,  though  so  slender 
as  to  appear  fragile.  An  amber  paleness  overspread  her  face, 
betraying  sudden  interest,  but  it  did  not  dim  the  voluptuous 
glance  of  her  liquid  eyes  of  velvety  blackness.  A  pair  of 
hands  as  beautiful  as  ever  a  Greek  sculptor  added  to  the 
polished  arms  of  a  statue  grasped  Rodolphe's  arm,  and  their 
whiteness  gleamed  against  his  black  coat.  The  rash  French- 
man could  but  just  discern  the  long,  oval  shape  of  her  face, 
and  a  melancholy  mouth  showing  brilliant  teeth  between  the 
parted  lips,  full,  fresh,  and  brightly  red.  The  exquisite  lines 
of  this  face  guaranteed  to  Francesca  permanent  beauty ;  but 
what  most  struck  Rodolphe  was  the  adorable  freedom,  the 
Italian  frankness  of  this  woman,  wholly  absorbed  as  she  was 
in  her  pity  for  him. 

Francesca  said  a  word  to  Gina,  who  gave  Rodolphe  her  arm 
as  far  as  the  Stopfers'  door,  and  fled  like  a  swallow  as  soon  as 
she  had  rung. 

"  These  patriots  do  not  play  at  killing !  "  said  Rodolphe  to 
himself  as  he  felt  his  sufferings  when  he  found  himself  in  his 


S24  ALBER T  SAVAROM 

bed.  "  '  Nd  lago  /'  Gina  would  have  pitched  me  into  the 
lake  with  a  stone  tied  to  my  neck." 

Next  day  he  sent  to  Lucerne  for  the  best  surgeon  there,  and 
when  the  surgeon  came,  enjoined  on  him  absolute  secrecy, 
giving  him  to  understand  that  his  honor  strictly  depended  or 
such  observance. 

Leopold  returned  from  his  excursion  on  the  day  when  his 
friend  first  got  out  of  bed.  Rodolphe  made  up  a  story,  and 
begged  him  to  go  to  Lucerne  to  fetch  their  luggage  and  letters. 
Leopold  brought  back  the  most  fatal,  the  most  dreadful 
news  :  Rodolphe's  mother  was  dead.  While  the  two  friends 
were  on  their  way  from  Bale  to  Lucerne,  the  fatal  letter, 
written  by  Leopold's  father,  had  reached  Lucerne  the  day 
they  left  for  Fluelen. 

In  spite  of  Leopold's  utmost  precautions,  Rodolphe  fell  ill 
of  a  nervous  fever.  As  soon  as  Leopold  saw  his  friend  out 
of  danger,  he  set  out  for  France  with  a  power  of  attorney, 
and  Rodolphe  could  thus  remain  at  Gersau,  the  only  place  in 
the  world  where  his  grief  could  grow  calmer.  The  young 
Frenchman's  position,  his  despair,  the  circumstances  which 
made  such  a  loss  worse  for  him  than  for  any  other  man,  were 
known,  and  secured  him  the  pity  and  interest  of  every  one  at 
Gersau.  Every  morning  the  pretended  dumb  girl  came  to 
see  him  and  bring  him  news  of  her  mistress. 

As  soon  as  Rodolphe  could  go  out  he  went  to  the  Berg- 
manns'  house,  to  thank  Miss  Fanny  Lovelace  and  her  father 
for  the  interest  they  had  taken  in  his  sorrow  and  his  illness. 
For  the  first  time  since  he  had  lodged  with  the  Bergmanns  the 
old  Italian  admitted  a  stranger  to  his  room,  where  Rodolphe 
was  received  with  the  cordiality  due  to  his  misfortunes  and  to 
his  being  a  Frenchman,  which  excluded  all  distrust  of  him. 
Francesca  looked  so  lovely  by  candlelight  that  first  evening 
that  she  shed  a  ray  of  brightness  on  his  grieving  heart.  Her 
smiles  flung  the  roses  of  hope  on  his  woe.  She  sang,  not 
indeed  gay  songs,  but  grave  and  solemn  melodies  suited  to 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  325 

the  state  of  Rodolphe's  heart,  and  he  observed  this  touching 
care. 

At  about  eight  o'clock  the  old  man  left  the  young  people 
without  any  sign  of  uneasiness,  and  went  to  his  room.  When 
Francesca  was  tired  of  singing,  she  led  Rodolphe  on  to  the 
balcony,  whence  they  perceived  the  sublime  scenery  of  the 
lake,  and  signed  to  him  to  be  seated  by  her  on  a  rustic 
wooden  bench. 

"  Am  I  very  indiscreet  in  asking  how  old  you  are,  cara 
Francesca?"  said  Rodolphe. 

"Nineteen,"  said  she,  "well  past." 

"  If  anything  in  the  world  could  soothe  my  sorrow,"  he 
went  on,  "it  would  be  the  hope  of  winning  you  from  your 
father,  whatever  your  fortune  may  be.  So  beautiful  as  you 
are,  you  seem  to  me  richer  than  a  prince's  daughter.  And  I 
tremble  as  I  confess  to  you  the  feelings  with  which  you  have 
inspired  me;  but  they  are  deep — they  are  eternal." 

"  Zitto  /"  said  Francesca,  laying  a  finger  of  her  right  hand 
on  her  lips.  "  Say  no  more;  I  am  not  free.  I  have  been 
married  these  three  years." 

For  a  few  minutes  utter  silence  reigned.  When  the  Italian 
girl,  alarmed  at  Rodolphe's  stillness,  went  close  to  him,  she 
found  that  he  had  fainted. 

"  Povero  !  "  she  said  to  herself.    "And  I  thought  him  cold." 

She  fetched  some  salts,  and  revived  Rodolphe  by  making 
him  smell  at  them. 

"  Married  !  "  said  Rodolphe,  looking  at  Francesca.  And 
then  his  tears  flowed  freely. 

"Child!"  said  she.  "But  there  still  is  hope.  My  hus- 
band is " 

"  Eighty?  "  Rodolphe  put  in. 

"  No,"  said  she  with  a  smile,  "but  sixty-five.  He  has  dis- 
guised himself  as  much  older  to  mislead  the  police." 

"Dearest,"  said  Rodolphe,  "a  few  more  shocks  of  this 
kind    and  I   shall    die.     Only   when    you   have  known    me 


326  ALBER  T  SA  VAR  ON. 

twenty  years  will  you  understand  the  strength  and  power  of 
my  heart,  and  the  nature  of  its  aspirations  for  happiness. 
This  plant,"  he  went  on,  pointing  to  the  yellow  jasmine 
which  covered  the  balustrade,  "  does  not  climb  more  eagerly 
to  spread  itself  in  the  sunbeams  than  I  have  clung  to  you  for 
this  month  past.  I  love  you  passionately.  That  love  will  be 
the  secret  fount  of  my  life — I  may  possibly  die  of  it." 

"Oh!  Frenchman,  Frenchman!"  said  she,  emphasizing 
her  exclamation  with  a  little  incredulous  grimace. 

"  Shall  I  not  be  forced  to  wait,  to  accept  you  at  the  hands 
of  time?"  said  he  gravely.  "  But  know  this  ;  if  you  are  in 
earnest  in  what  you  have  allowed  to  escape  you,  I  will  wait 
for  you  faithfully,  without  suffering  any  other  attachment  to 
grow  up  in  my  heart." 

She  looked  at  him  doubtfully. 

"  None,"  said  he,  "  not  even  a  passing  fancy.  I  have  my 
fortune  to  make  ;  you  must  have  a  splendid  one,  nature  created 
you  a  princess " 

At  this  word  Francesca  could  not  repress  a  faint  smile, 
which  gave  her  face  the  most  bewitching  expression,  some- 
thing subtle,  like  what  the  great  Leonardo  has  so  well  depicted 
in  the  Gioconda.  This  smile  made  Rodolphe  pause.  "  Ah, 
yes  !  "  he  went  on,  "  you  must  suffer  much  from  the  destitu- 
tion to  which  exile  has  brought  you.  Oh,  if  you  would  make 
me  happy  above  all  men,  and  consecrate  my  love,  you  would 
treat  me  as  a  friend.  Ought  I  not  to  be  your  friend  ?  My 
poor  mother  has  left  sixty  thousand  francs  of  savings ;  take 
half." 

Francesca  looked  steadily  at  him.  This  piercing  gaze  went 
to  the  bottom  of  Rodolphe's  soul. 

"  We  want  nothing  ;  my  work  amply  supplies  our  luxuries," 
she  replied  in  a  grave  voice. 

"And  can  I  endure  that  a  Francesca  should  work?"  cried 
he.  "  One  day  you  will  return  to  your  country  and  find  all 
you  left  there."     Again  the  Italian  girl  looked  at  Rodolphe. 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON.  327 

"And  you  will  then  repay  me  what  you  may  have  conde- 
scended to  borrow,"  he  added,  with  an  expression  full  of 
delicate  feeling. 

"Let  us  drop  this  subject,"  said  she,  with  incomparable 
dignity  of  gesture,  expression,  and  attitude.  "  Make  a  splen- 
did fortune,  be  one  of  the  remarkable  men  of  your  country; 
that  is  my  desire.  Fame  is  a  drawbridge  which  may  serve  to 
cross  a  deep  gulf.  Be  ambitious,  if  you  must.  I  believe  you 
have  great  and  powerful  talents,  but  use  them  rather  for  the 
happiness  of  mankind  than  to  deserve  me ;  you  will  be  all  the 
greater  in  my  eyes." 

In  the  course  of  this  conversation,  which  lasted  two  hours, 
Rodolphe  discovered  that  Francesca  was  an  enthusiast  for 
liberal  ideas,  and  for  that  worship  of  liberty  which  had  led  to 
the  three  revolutions  in  Naples,  Piedmont,  and  Spain.  On 
leaving,  he  was  shown  to  the  door  by  Gina,  the  so-called 
mute.  At  eleven  o'clock  no  one  was  astir  in  the  village, 
there  was  no  fear  of  listeners;  Rodolphe  took  Gina  into  a 
corner,  and  asked  her  in  a  low  voice  and  bad  Italian,  "  Who 
are  your  master  and  mistress,  child  ?  Tell  me,  I  will  give 
you  this  fine  new  gold-piece." 

"  Monsieur,"  said  the  girl,  taking  the  coin,  "ray  master  is 
the  famous  bookseller  Lamporani  of  Milan,  one  of  the  leaders  of 
the  revolution,  and  the  conspirator  of  all  others  whom  Austria 
would  most  like  to  have  in  the  Spielberg." 

"  A  bookseller's  wife  !  Ah,  so  much  the  better,"  thought 
he  ;  "  we  are  on  an  equal  footing.  And  what  is  her  family  ?  " 
he  added,  "  for  she  looks  like  a  queen." 

"All  Italian  women  do,"  replied  Gina  proudly.  "Her 
father's  name  is  Colonna." 

Emboldened  by  Francesca's  modest  rank,  Rodolphe  had  an 
awning  fitted  to  his  boat  and  cushions  in  the  stern.  When 
this  was  done,  the  lover  came  to  propose  to  Francesca  to  come 
out  on  the  lake.  The  Italian  accepted,  no  doubt  to  carry  out 
her  part  of  a  young  English  miss  in  the  eyes  of  the  villagers, 


328  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

but  she  brought  Ginawith  her.  Francesca  Colonna's  lightest 
actions  betrayed  a  superior  education  and  the  highest  social 
rank.  By  the  way  in  which  she  took  her  place  at  the  end  of 
the  boat  Rodolphe  felt  himself  in  some  sort  cut  off  from  her, 
and,  in  the  face  of  a  look  of  pride  worthy  of  an  aristocrat, 
the  familiarity  he  had  intended  fell  dead.  By  a  glance  Fran- 
cesca made  herself  a  princess,  with  all  the  prerogatives  she 
might  have  enjoyed  in  the  middle  ages.  She  seemed  to  have 
read  the  thoughts  of  this  vassal  who  was  so  audacious  as  to 
constitute  himself  her  protector. 

Already,  in  the  furniture  of  the  room  where  Francesca  had 
received  him,  in  her  dress,  and  in  the  various  trifles  she  made 
use  of,  Rodolphe  had  detected  indications  of  a  superior  char- 
acter and  a  fine  fortune.  All  these  observations  now  recurred 
to  his  mind  ;  he  became  thoughtful  after  having  been  trampled 
on,  as  it  were,  by  Francesca's  dignity.  Gina,  her  half-grown-up 
confidantey  also  seemed  to  have  a  mocking  expression  as  she 
gave  a  covert  or  side  glance  at  Rodolphe.  This  obvious  disa- 
greement between  the  Italian  lady's  rank  and  her  manners  was 
a  fresh  puzzle  to  Rodolphe,  who  suspected  some  further  trick 
like  Gina's  assumed  dumbness. 

"  Where  would  you  go,  Signora  Lamporani  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Towards  Lucerne,"  replied  Francesca  in  French. 

"  Good  !  "  said  Rodolphe  to  himself,  "she  is  not  startled 
by  hearing  me  speak  her  name ;  she  had,  no  doubt,  foreseen 
that  I  should  ask  Gina — she  is  so  cunning.  What  is  your 
quarrel  with  me?"  he  went  on,  going  at  last  to  sit  down  by 
her  side,  and  asking  her  by  a  gesture  to  give  him  her  hand, 
which  she  withdrew.  "  You  are  cold  and  ceremonious ;  what, 
in  colloquial  language,  we  should  call  short" 

"  It  is  true,"  she  replied  with  a  smile.  "I  am  wrong.  It 
is  not  good  manners ;  it  is  vulgar.  In  French  you  would  call  it 
inartistic.  It  is  better  to  be  frank  than  to  harbor  cold  or 
hostile  feelings  towards  a  friend,  and  you  have  already  proved 
yourself  my  friend.     Perhaps  I  have  gone  too  far  with  you. 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON.  329 

You  must  have  taken  me  to  be  a  very  ordinary  woman." 
Rodolphe  made  many  signs  of  denial.  "Yes,"  said  the 
bookseller's  wife,  going  on  without  noticing  this  pantomime, 
which,  however,  she  plainly  saw.  "  I  have  detected  that,  and 
naturally  I  have  reconsidered  my  conduct.  Well !  I  will  put 
an  end  to  everything  by  a  few  words  of  deep  truth.  Under- 
stand this,  Rodolphe  :  I  feel  in  myself  the  strength  to  stifle  a 
feeling  if  it  were  not  in  harmony  with  my  ideas  or  anticipation 
of  what  true  love  is.  I  could  love — as  we  can  love  in  Italy, 
but  I  know  my  duty.  No  intoxication  can  make  me  forget  it. 
Married  without  my  consent  to  that  poor  old  man,  I  might  take 
advantage  of  the  liberty  he  so  generously  gives  me;  but  three 
years  of  married  life  imply  acceptance  of  its  laws.  Hence  the 
most  vehement  passion  would  never  make  me  utter,  even 
involuntarily,  a  wish  to  find  myself  free. 

"  Emilio  knows  my  character.  He  knows  that  without  my 
heart,  which  is  my  own,  and  which  I  might  give  away,  I 
should  never  allow  any  one  to  take  my  hand.  That  is  why  I 
have  just  refused  it  to  you.  I  desire  to  be  loved  and  waited 
for  with  fidelity,  nobleness,  ardor,  while  all  I  can  give  is 
infinite  tenderness  of  which  the  expression  may  not  overstep 
the  boundary  of  the  heart,  the  permitted  neutral  ground.  All 
this  being  thoroughly  understood.  Oh  !  "  she  went  on  with  a 
girlish  gesture,  "  I  will  be  as  coquettish,  as  gay,  as  glad,  as  a 
child  who  knows  comparatively  nothing  of  the  dangers  of 
familiarity." 

This  plain  and  frank  declaration  was  made  in  a  tone,  an 
accent,  and  supported  by  a  look  which  gave  it  the  deepest 
stamp  of  truth. 

"A  Princess  Colonna  could  not  have  spoken  better,"  said 
Rodolphe,  smiling. 

"Is  that,"  she  answered  with  some  haughtiness,  "a  reflec- 
tion on  the  humbleness  of  my  birth?  Must  your  love  flaunt 
a  coat-of-arms  ?  At  Milan  the  noblest  names  are  written  over 
shop-doors :     Sforza,    Canova,    Visconti,    Trivulzio,    Ursini ; 


330  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

there  are  Archintos  apothecaries  ;  but,  believe  me,  though  I 
keep  a  shop,  I  have  the  feelings  of  a  duchess." 

"  A  reflection  !     Nay,  madame,  I  meant  it  for  praise." 

¥  By  comparison  ?  "  she  said  archly. 

''Ah,  once  for  all,"  said  he,  "  not  to  torture  me  if  my 
words  should  ill  express  my  feelings,  understand  that  my  love 
is  perfect ;  it  carries  with  it  absolute  obedience  and  respect." 

She  bowed  as  a  woman  satisfied,  and  said,  "  Then  monsieur 
accepts  the  treaty?  " 

"Yes,"  said  he.  "I  can  understand  that  in  a  rich  and 
powerful  feminine  nature  the  faculty  of  loving  ought  not  to  be 
wasted,  and  that  you,  out  of  delicacy,  wished  to  restrain  it. 
Ah  !  Francesca,  at  my  age  tenderness  requited,  and  by  so 
sublime,  so  royally  beautiful  a  creature  as  you  are — why,  it  is 
the  fulfillment  of  all  my  wishes.  To  love  you  as  you  desire  to 
be  loved — is  not  that  enough  to  make  a  young  man  guard 
himself  against  every  evil  folly  ?  Is  it  not  to  concentrate  all  his 
powers  in  a  noble  passion,  of  which  in  the  future  he  may 
be  proud,  and  which  can  leave  none  but  lovely  memories? 
If  you  could  but  know  with  what  hues  you  have  clothed  the 
chain  of  Pilatus,  the  Rigi,  and  this  superb  lake " 

"  I  want  to  know,"  said  she,  with  the  Italian  artlessness 
which  has  always  a  touch  of  artfulness. 

"  Well,  this  hour  will  shine  on  all  my  life  like  a  diamond 
on  a  queen's  brow." 

Francesca's  only  reply  was  to  lay  her  hand  on  Rodolphe's. 

"  Oh  dearest  !  for  ever  dearest !  Tell  me,  have  you  never 
loved?" 

"Never." 

"  And  you  allow  me  to  love  you  nobly,  looking  to  heaven 
for  the  utmost  fulfillment  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  gently  bent  her  head.  Two  large  tears  rolled  down 
Rodolphe's  cheeks. 

"Why!  what  is  the  matter?"  she  cried,  abandoning  her 
imperial  manner. 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  331 

"  I  have  now  no  mother  whom  I  can  tell  of  my  happiness ; 
she  left  this  earth  without  seeing  what  would  have  mitigated 
her  agony " 

''What?"  said  she. 

"Her  tenderness  replaced  by  an  equal  tenderness " 


" Povero  mio!"  exclaimed  the  Italian,  much  touched. 
"Believe  me/'  she  went  on  after  a  pause,  "  it  is  a  very  sweet 
thing,  and  to  a  woman,  a  strong  element  of  fidelity  to  know 
that  she  is  all  in  all  on  earth  to  the  man  she  loves  ;  to  find 
him  lonely,  with  no  family,  with  nothing  in  his  heart  but  his 
love — in  short,  to  have  him  wholly  to  herself." 

When  two  lovers  thus  understand  each  other,  the  heart  feels 
delicious  peace,  supreme  tranquillity.  Certainty  is  the  basis 
for  which  human  feelings  crave,  for  it  is  never  lacking  to 
religious  sentiment ;  man  is  always  certain  of  being  fully 
repaid  by  God.  Love  never  believes  itself  secure  but  by  this 
resemblance  to  divine  love.  And  the  raptures  of  that  moment 
must  have  been  fully  felt  to  be  understood ;  it  is  unique  in 
life ;  it  can  never  return  again,  alas !  than  the  emotions  of 
youth.  To  believe  in  a  woman,  to  make  her  your  human  re- 
ligion, the  fount  of  life,  the  secret  luminary  of  all  your  least 
thoughts! — is  not  this  a  second  birth?  And  a  young  man 
mingles  with  this  love  a  little  of  the  feeling  he  had  for  his 
mother. 

Rodolpheand  Francesca  for  some  time  remained  in  perfect 
silence,  answering  each  other  by  sympathetic  glances  full  of 
thoughts.  They  understood  each  other  in  the  midst  of  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  scenes  of  nature,  whose  glories,  inter- 
preted by  the  glory  in  their  hearts,  helped  to  stamp  on  their 
minds  the  most  fugitive  details  of  that  unique  hour.  There 
had  not  been  the  slightest  shade  of  frivolity  in  Francesca's 
conduct.  It  was  noble,  large,  and  without  any  second  thought. 
This  magnanimity  struck  Rodolphe  greatly,  for  in  it  he  recog- 
nized the  difference  between  the  Italian  and  the  Frenchwoman. 
The  waters,  the  land,  the  sky,  the  woman,  all  were  grandiose 


332  ALBER  T  SA  VARON. 

• 

and  suave,  even  their  love  in  the  midst  of  this  picture,  so  vast 
in  its  expanse,  so  rich  in  detail,  where  the  sternness  of  the 
snowy  peaks  and  their  hard  folds  standing  clearly  out  against 
the  blue  sky  reminded  Rodolphe  of  the  circumstances  which 
limited  his  happiness:  a  lovely  country  shut  in  by  snows. 

This  delightful  intoxication  of  soul  was  destined  to  be 
disturbed.  A  boat  was  approaching  from  Lucerne;  Gina, 
who  had  been  watching  it  attentively,  gave  a  joyful  start, 
though  faithful  to  her  part  as  a  mute.  The  bark  came  nearer; 
when  at  length  Francesca  could  distinguish  the  faces  on  board, 
she  exclaimed,  "  Tito  !  "  as  she  perceived  a  young  man.  She 
stood  up  and  remained  standing  at  the  risk  of  being  drowned. 
"Tito!  Tito!"  cried  she,  impulsively  waving  her  handker- 
chief. 

Tito  desired  the  boatmen  to  slacken,  and  the  two  boats 
pulled  side  by  side.  The  Italian  and  Tito  talked  with  such 
extreme  rapidity,  and  in  a  dialect  unfamiliar  to  a  man  who 
hardly  knew  even  the  Italian  of  books,  that  Rodolphe  could, 
neither  hear  nor  guess  the  drift  of  this  conversation.  But 
Tito's  handsome  face,  Francesca's  familiarity,  and  Gina's 
expression  of  delight,  all  aggrieved  him.  And  indeed  no  lover 
can  help  being  ill  pleased  at  finding  himself  neglected  for 
another,  whoever  he  may  be.  Tito  tossed  a  little  leather  bag 
to  Gina,  full  of  gold,  no  doubt,  and  a  packet  of  letters  to 
Francesca,  who  began  to  read  them,  with  a  farewell  wave  of 
the  hand  to  Tito. 

"Get  quickly  back  to  Gersau,"  she  said  to  the  boatmen. 
"  I  will  not  let  my  poor  Emilio  pine  ten  minutes  longer  than 
he  need." 

"  What  has  happened?  "  asked  Rodolphe,  as  he  saw  Fran- 
cesca finish  reading  the  last  letter. 

"Liberty  !  "  she  exclaimed,  with  an  artist's  enthusiasm. 

"And  money,"  added  Gina,  like  an  echo,  for  she  had 
found  her  tongue. 

"Yes,"   said   Francesca,  "no  more  poverty!     For  more 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  333 

than  eleven  months  have  I  been  working,  and  I  was  beginning 
to  be  tired  of  it.     I  am  certainly  not  a  literary  woman." 

"  Who  is  this  Tito?  "  asked  Rodolphe. 

"The  secretary  of  state  to  the  financial  department  of  the 
humble  shop  of  the  Colonnas,  in  other  words  the  son  of  our 
ragionato.  Poor  boy  !  he  could  not  come  by  the  Saint-Goth- 
ard,  nor  by  the  Mont-Cenis,  nor  by  the  Simplon  ;  he  came  by 
sea,  by.  Marseilles,  and  had  to  cross  France.  Well,  in  three 
weeks  we  shall  be  in  Geneva,  and  living  at  our  ease.  Come, 
Rodolphe,"  she  added,  seeing  sadness  overspread  the  Paris- 
ian's face,  "  is  not  the  Lake  of  Geneva  quite  as  good  as  the 
Lake  of  Lucerne?" 

"But  allow  me  to  bestow  a  regret  on  the  Bergmanns'  de- 
lightful house,"  said  Rodolphe,  pointing  to  the  little  pro- 
montory. 

"  Come  and  dine  with  us  to  add  to  your  associations,  povero 
mio,"  said  she.  "This  is  a  great  day;  we  are  out  of  danger. 
My  mother  writes  that  within  a  year  there  will  be  an  amnesty. 
Oh  !   la  car  a  p  atria  ! ' ' 

These  three  words  made  Gina  weep.  "Another  winter 
here,"  said  she,  "and  I  should  have  been  dead  !  " 

"  Poor  little  Sicilian  kid  !  "  said  Francesca,  stroking  Gina's 
head  with  an  expression  and  an  affection  which  made  Ro- 
dolphe long  to  be  so  caressed,  even  if  it  were  without  love. 

The  boat  grounded ;  Rodolphe  sprang  on  to  the  sand, 
offered  his  hand  to  the  Italian  lady,  escorted  her  to  the  door 
of  the  Bergmanns'  house,  and  went  to  dress  and  return  as  soon 
as  possible. 

When  he  joined  the  bookseller  and  his  wife,  who  were  sit- 
ting on  the  balcony,  Rodolphe  could  scarcely  repress  an  ex- 
clamation of  surprise  at  seeing  the  prodigious  change  which 
the  good  news  had  produced  in  the  old  man.  He  now  saw  a 
man  of  about  sixty,  extremely  well  preserved,  a  lean  Italian, 
as  straight  as  an  I,  with  hair  still  black  though  thin  and  show- 
ing a  white  skull,  with  bright  eyes,  a  full  set  of  white  teeth,  a 


334  ALBER  T  SA  VAR  OM 

face  like  Caesar,  and  on  his  diplomatic  lips  a  sardonic  smile, 
the  almost  false  smile  under  which  a  man  of  good  breeding 
hides  his  real  feelings. 

"Here  is  my  husband  under  his  natural  form/'  said  Fran- 
cesca  gravely. 

"He  is  quite  a  new  acquaintance,"  replied  Rodolphe,  be- 
wildered. 

"Quite,"  said  the  bookseller;  "I  have  played  .many  a 
part,  and  know  well  how  to  make  up.  Ah  !  I  played  one  in 
Paris  under  the  Empire,  with  Bourrienne,  Madame  Murat, 
Madame  d'Abrantis  e  tutte  quanti.  Everything  we  take  the 
trouble  to  learn  in  our  youth,  even  the  most  futile,  is  of  use. 
If  my  wife  had  not  received  a  man's  education — an  unheard-of 
thing  in  Italy — I  should  have  been  obliged  to  chop  wood  to 
get  my  living  here.  Povera  Francesca  !  who  would  have  told 
me  that  she  would  some  day  maintain  me  !  " 

As  he  listened  to  this  worthy  bookseller,  so  easy,  so  affable, 
so  hale,  Rodolphe  scented  some  mystification,  and  preserved 
the  watchful  silence  of  a  man  who  has  been  duped. 

"Che  avete,  signor?"  Francesca  asked  with  simplicity. 
"  Does  our  happiness  sadden  you?  " 

"Your  husband  is  a  young  man,"  he  whispered  in  her  ear. 

She  broke  into  such  a  frank,  infectious  laugh  that  Rodolphe 
was  still  more  puzzled. 

"He  is  but  sixty-five,  at  your  service,"  said  she;  "but  I 
can  assure  you  that  even  that  is  something — to  be  thankful 
for!" 

"  I  do  not  like  to  hear  you  jest  about  an  affection  so  sacred 
as  this,  of  which  you  yourself  prescribed  the  conditions." 

"Z/V/tf/"  said  she,  stamping  her  foot,  and  looking  whether 
her  husband  were  listening.  "  Never  disturb  the  peace  of 
mind  of  that  dear  man,  as  simple  as  a  child,  and  with  whom 
I  can  do  what  I  please.  He  is  under  my  protection,"  she 
added.  "  If  you  could  know  with  what  generosity  he  risked 
his  life  and  fortune  because  I  was  a  Liberal !  for  he  does  not 


ALBER T  SAVAR ON.  335 

share  my  political  opinions.  Is  not  that  love,  Monsieur 
Frenchman  ?  But  they  are  like  that  in  his  family.  Emilio's 
younger  brother  was  deserted  for  a  handsome  youth  by  the 
woman  he  loved.  He  thrust  his  sword  through  his  own  heart 
ten  minutes  after  he  had  said  to  his  servant, '  I  could  of  course 
kill  my  rival,  but  it  would  grieve  the  Diva  too  deeply.'  " 

This  mixture  of  dignity  and  banter,  of  haughtiness  and 
playfulness,  made  Francesca  at  this  moment  the  most  fascina- 
ting creature  in  the  world.  The  dinner  and  the  evening  were 
full  of  cheerfulness,  justified,  indeed,  by  the  relief  of  the  two 
refugees,  but  depressing  to  Rodolphe. 

"  Can  she  be  fickle  ?  "  he  asked  himself  as  he  returned  to 
the  Stopfers'  house.  "  She  sympathized  in  my  sorrow,  and  I 
cannot  take  part  in  her  joy  !  " 

He  blamed  himself,  justifying  this  girl-wife. 

"She  has  no  taint  of  hypocrisy,  and  is  carried  away  by 
impulse,"  thought  he,  "  and  I  want  her  to  be  like  a  Parisian 
woman." 

Next  day  and  the  following  days — in  fact,  for  twenty  days 
after — Rodolphe  spent  all  his  time  at  the  Bergmanns',  watch- 
ing Francesca  without  having  determined  to  watch  her.  In 
some  souls  admiration  is  not  independent  of  a  certain  pene- 
tration. The  young  Frenchman  discerned  in  Francesca  the 
imprudence  of  girlhood,  the  true  nature  of  a  woman  as  yet 
unbroken,  sometimes  struggling  against  her  love,  and  at  other 
moments  yielding  and  carried  away  by  it.  The  old  man  cer- 
tainly behaved  to  her  as  a  father  to  his  daughter,  and  Fran- 
cesca treated  him  with  a  deeply  felt  gratitude  which  roused 
her  instinctive  nobleness.  The  situation  and  the  woman 
were  to  Rodolphe  an  impenetrable  enigma,  of  which  the  solu- 
tion attracted  him  more  and  more. 

These  last  days  were  full  of  secret  joys,  alternating  with 
melancholy  moods,  with  tiffs  and  quarrels  even  more  delight- 
ful than  the  hours  when  Rodolphe  and  Francesca  were  of  one 


33$  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

mind.  And  he  was  more  and  more  fascinated  by  this  tender- 
ness apart  from  wit,  always  and  in  all  things  the  same,  an 
affection  that  was  jealous  of  mere  nothings — already  ! 

"You  care  very  much  for  luxury?  "  said  he  one  evening  to 
Francesca,  who  was  expressing  her  wish  to  get  away  from 
Gersau,  where  she  missed  many  things. 

■'II"  cried  she.  "  I  love  luxury  as  I  love  the  arts,  as  I 
love  a  picture  by  Raphael,  a  fine  horse,  a  beautiful  day,  or  the 
Bay  of  Naples.  Emilio,"  she  went  on,  "  have  I  ever  com- 
plained here  during  our  days  of  privation  ?  " 

"You  would  not  have  been  yourself  if  you  had,"  replied 
the  old  man  gravely. 

"  After  all,  is  it  not  in  the  nature  of  plain  folks  to  aspire  to 
grandeur?"  she  asked,  with  a  mischievous  glance  at  Ro- 
dolphe  and  at  her  husband.  "Were  my  feet  made  for 
fatigue?"  she  added,  putting  out  two  pretty  little  feet. 
"  My  hands  " — and  she  held  one  out  to  Rodolphe — "  were 
those  hands  made  to  work?  Leave  us,"  she  said  to  her  hus- 
band ;  "I  want  to  speak  to  him." 

The  old  man  went  into  the  drawing-room  with  sublime 
good  faith ;  he  was  sure  of  his  wife. 

"  I  will  not  have  you  come  with  us  to  Geneva,"  she  said  to 
Rodolphe.  "  It  is  a  gossiping  town.  Though  I  am  far 
above  the  nonsense  the  world  talks,  I  do  not  choose  to  be 
calumniated,  not  for  my  own  sake,  but  for  his.  I  make  it 
my  pride  to  be  the  glory  of  that  old  man,  who  is,  after  all, 
my  only  protector.  We  are  leaving ;  stay  here  a  few  days. 
When  you  come  on  to  Geneva,  call  first  on  my  husband,  and 
let  him  introduce  you  to  me.  Let  us  hide  our  great  and 
unchangeable  affection  from  the  eyes  of  the  world.  I  love 
you  ;  you  know  it ;  but  this  is  how  I  will  prove  it  to  you — 
you  shall  never  discern  in  my  conduct  anything  whatever 
that  may  arouse  your  jealousy." 

She  drew  him  into  a  corner  of  the  balcony,  kissed  him  on 
the  forehead,  and  fled,  leaving  him  in  amazement. 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  337 

Next  day  Rodolphe  heard  that  the  lodgers  at  the  Berg- 
manns'  had  left  at  daybreak.  It  then  seemed  to  him  intoler- 
able to  remain  at  Gersau,  and  he  set'  out  for  Vevay  by  the 
longest  route,  starting  sooner  than  was  necessary.  Attracted 
to  the  waters  of  the  lake  where  the  beautiful  Italian  awaited 
him,  he  reached  Geneva  by  the  end  of  October.  To  avoid 
the  discomforts  of  the  town  he  took  rooms  in  a  house  at 
Eaux-Vives,  outside  the  walls.  As  soon  as  he  was  settled,  his 
first  care  was  to  ask  his  landlord,  a  retired  jeweler,  whether 
some  Italian  refugees  from  Milan  had  not  lately  come  to 
reside  at  Geneva. 

"Not  so  far  as  I  know,"  replied  the  man.  "Prince  and 
Princess  Colonna  of  Rome  have  taken  Monsieur  Jeanrenaud's 
place  for  three  years  ;  it  is  one  of  the  finest  on  the  lake.  It 
is  situated  between  the  Villa  Diodati  and  that  of  Monsieur 
Lafin-de-Dieu,  let  to  the  Vicomtesse  de  Beauseant.  Prince 
Colonna  has  come  to  see  his  daughter  and  his  son-in-law, 
Prince  Gandolphini,  a  Neapolitan,  or  if  you  like,  a  Sicilian, 
an  old  adherent  of  King  Murat's,  and  a  victim  of  the  last 
revolution.  These  are  the  last  arrivals  at  Geneva,  and  they 
are  not  Milanese.  Serious  steps  had  to  be  taken,  and  the 
pope's  interest  in  the  Colonna  family  was  invoked,  to  obtain 
permission  from  the  foreign  powers  and  the  King  of  Naples 
for  the  Prince  and  Princesse  Gandolphini  to  live  here.  Ge- 
neva is  anxious  to  do  nothing  to  displease  the  Holy  Alliance  to 
which  it  owes  its  independence.  Our  part  is  not  to  ruffle  for- 
eign courts :  there  are  many  foreigners  here,  Russians  and 
English." 

"Even  some  Genevese?" 

"Yes,  monsieur,  our  lake  is  so  fine  !  Lord  Byron  lived  here 
about  seven  years  at  the  Villa  Diodati,  which  every  one  goes 
to  see  now,  like  Coppet  and  Ferney." 

"You  cannot  tell  me  whether  within  a  week  or  so  a*book- 

seller  from  Milan  has  come  with  his  wife — named  Lamporani, 

one  of  the  leaders  of  the  last  revolution?  " 
22 


338  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

"  I  could  easily  find  out  by  going  to  the  Foreigners'  Club/' 
said  the  jeweler. 

Rodolphe's  first  walk  was  very  naturally  to  the  Villa  Dio- 
dati,  the  residence  of  Lord  Byron,  whose  recent  death  added 
to  its  attractiveness:  for  is  not  death  the  consecration  of 
genius  ? 

The  road  to  Eaux-Vives  follows  the  shore  of  the  lake,  and, 
like  all  the  roads  in  Switzerland,  is  very  narrow ;  in  some 
spots,  in  consequence  of  the  configuration  of  the  hilly 
ground,  there  is  scarcely  space  for  two  carriages  to  pass  each 
other. 

At  a  few  yards  from  the  Jeanrenauds'  house,  which  he 
was  approaching  without  knowing  it,  Rodolphe  heard  the 
sound  of  a  carriage  behind  him,  and,  finding  himself  in  a  sunken 
road,  he  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  rock  to  leave  the  road  free. 
Of  course  he  looked  at  the  approaching  carriage — an  elegant 
English  phaeton,  with  a  splendid  pair  of  English  horses.  He 
felt  quite  dizzy  as  he  beheld  in  this  carriage  Francesca,  beau- 
tifully dressed,  by  the  side  of  an  old  lady  as  hard  as  a  cameo. 
A  servant  blazing  with  gold  lace  stood  behind.  Francesca 
recognized  Rodolphe,  and  smiled  at  seeing  him  like  a  statue 
on  a  pedestal.  The  carriage,  which  the  lover  followed  with 
his  eyes  as  he  climbed  the  hill,  turned  in  at  the  gate  of  a 
country  house,  towards  which  he  ran. 

"  Who  lives  here?  "  he  asked  of  the  gardener. 

"  Prince  and  Princess  Colonna,  and  Prince  and  Princess 
Gandolphini." 

"  Have  they  not  just  driven  in?  " 

"Yes,  sir." 

In  that  instant  a  veil  fell  from  Rodolphe's  eyes ;  he  saw 
clearly  the  meaning  of  the  past. 

"If  only  this  is  her  last  piece  of  trickery  !  "  thought  the 
thunder-stricken  lover  to  himself. 

He  trembled  lest  he  should  have  been  the  plaything  of  a 
whim,  for  he  had  heard  what  a  capriccio  might  mean  in  an 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  339 

Italian.  But  what  a  crime  had  he  committed  in  the  eyes  of  a 
woman — in  accepting  a  born  princess  as  a  citizen's  wife  !  in 
believing  that  a  daughter  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious  houses 
of  the  middle  ages  was  the  wife  of  a  bookseller!  The  con- 
sciousness of  his  blunders  increased  Rodolphe's  desire  to 
know  whether  he  would  be  ignored  and  repelled.  He  asked 
for  Prince  Gandolphini,  sending  in  his  card,  and  was  imme- 
diately received  by  the  false  Lamporani,  who  came  forward 
to  meet  him,  welcomed  him  with  the  best  possible  grace,  and 
took  him  to  walk  on  a  terrace  whence  there  was  a  view  of 
Geneva,  the  Jura,  the  hills  covered  with  villas,  and  below 
them  a  wide  expanse  of  the  lake. 

"My  wife  is  faithful  to  the  lakes,  you  see,"  he  remarked, 
after  pointing  out  the  details  to  his  visitor.  "  We  have  a  sort 
of  concert  this  evening,"  he  added,  as  they  returned  to  the 
splendid  Villa  Jeanrenaud.  "  I  hope  you  will  do  me  and  the 
Princess  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you.  Two  months  of  poverty 
endured  in  intimacy  are  equal  to  years  of  friendship." 

Though  he  was  consumed  by  curiosity,  Rodolphe  dared  not 
ask  to  see  the  Princess  ;  he  slowly  made  his  way  back  to 
Eaux-Vives,  looking  forward  to  the  evening.  In  a  few  hours 
his  passion,  great  as  it  had  already  been,  was  augmented  by 
his  anxiety  and  by  suspense  as  to  future  events.  He  now 
understood  the  necessity  for  making  himself  famous,  that  he 
might  some  day  find  himself,  socially  speaking,  on  a  level 
with  his  idol.  In  his  eyes  Francesca  was  made  really  great 
by  the  simplicity  and  ease  of  her  conduct  at  Gersau.  Princess 
Colonna's  haughtiness,  so  evidently  natural  to  her,  alarmed 
Rodolphe,  who  would  find  enemies  in  Francesca's  father  and 
mother — at  least,  so  he  might  expect ;  and  the  secrecy  which 
Princess  Gandolphini  had  so  strictly  enjoined  on  him  now 
struck  him  as  a  wonderful  proof  of  affection.  By  not  choos- 
ing to  compromise  the  future,  had  she  not  confessed  that  she 
loved  him  ? 

At  last  nine  o'clock  struck;  Rodolphe  could  get  into  a  car- 


840  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

riage  and  say  with  an  emotion  that  is  very  intelligible,  "  To 
the  Villa  Jeanrenaud — to  Prince  Gandolphini's." 

At  last  he  saw  Francesca,  but  without  being  seen  by  her. 
The  Princess  was  standing  quite  near  the  piano.  Her  beauti- 
ful hair,  so  thick  and  long,  was  bound  with  a  golden  fillet. 
Her  face,  in  the  light  of  wax-candles,  had  the  brilliant  pallor 
peculiar  to  Italians,  and  which  looks  its  best  only  by  artificial 
light.  She  was  in  full  evening  dress,  showing  her  fascinating 
shoulders,  the  figure  of  a  girl  and  the  arms  of  an  antique 
statue.  Her  sublime  beauty  was  beyond  all  possible  rivalry, 
though  there  were  some  charming  English  and  Russian  ladies 
present,  the  prettiest  women  of  Geneva,  and  other  Italians, 
among  them  the  dazzling  and  illustrious  Princess  Varese,  and 
the  famous  singer  Tinti,  who  was  at  that  moment  engaged  in 
singing. 

Rodolphe,  leaning  against  the  door-post,  looked  at  the 
Princess,  turning  on  her  the  fixed,  tenacious,  attracting  gaze, 
charged  with  the  full,  insistent  will  which  is  concentrated  in 
the  feeling  called  desire,  and  thus  assumes  the  nature  of  a 
vehement  command.  Did  the  flame  of  that  gaze  reach  Fran- 
cesca ?  Was  Francesca  expecting  each  instant  to  see  Rodolphe  ? 
In  a  few  minutes  she  stole  a  glance  at  the  door,  as  though 
magnetized  by  this  current  of  love,  and  her  eyes,  without 
reserve,  looked  deep  into  Rodolphe's.  A  slight  thrill  quiv- 
ered through  that  superb  face  and  beautiful  body ;  the  shock 
to  her  spirit  reacted  :  Francesca  blushed  !  Rodolphe  felt  a 
whole  life  in  this  exchange  of  looks,  so  swift  that  it  can  only 
be  compared  to  a  lightning  flash.  But  to  what  could  his  hap- 
piness compare?  He  was  loved.  The  lofty  Princess,  in  the 
midst  of  her  world,  in  this  handsome  villa,  kept  the  pledge 
given  by  the  disguised  exile,  the  capricious  beauty  of  Berg- 
manns'  lodgings.  The  intoxication  of  such  a  moment  enslaves 
a  man  for  life  !  A  faint  smile,  refined  and  subtle,  candid  and 
triumphant,  curled  Princess  Gandolphini's  lips,  and  at  a 
moment  when  she  did  not  feel  herself  observed  she  looked  at 


ALBERT  SA VARON.  341 

Rodolphe  with  an  expression  which  seemed  to  ask  his  pardon 
for  having  deceived  him  as  to  her  rank. 

When  the  song  was  ended  Rodolphe  could  make  his  way 
to  the  Prince,  who  graciously  led  him  to  his  wife.  Rodolphe 
went  through  the  ceremonial  of  a  formal  introduction  to 
Princess  and  Prince  Colonna,  and  to  Francesca.  When  this 
was  over,  the  Princess  had  to  take  part  in  the  famous  quartette, 
Mi  manca  la  voce,  which  was  sung  by  her  with  Tinti,  with  the 
famous  tenor  Genovese,  and  with  a  well-known  Italian  prince 
then  in  exile,  whose  voice,  if  he  had  not  been  a  prince,  would 
have  made  him  one  of  the  princes  of  art. 

"Take  that  seat,"  said  Francesca  to  Rodolphe,  pointing 
to  her  own  chair.  "Oimef  I  think  there  is  some  mistake 
in  my  name ;  I  have  for  the  last  minute  been  Princess  Ro- 
dolphini." 

It  was  said  with  an  artless  grace  which  revived,  in  this 
avowal  hidden  beneath  a  jest,  the  happy  days  at  Gersau. 
Rodolphe  reveled  in  the  exquisite  sensation  of  listening  to 
the  voice  of  the  woman  he  adored,  while  sitting  so  close  to 
her  that  one  cheek  was  almost  touched  by  the  stuff  of  her 
dress  and  the  gauze  of  her  scarf.  But  when,  at  such  a  moment, 
Mi  manca  la  voce  is  being  sung,  and  by  the  finest  voices  in 
Italy,  it  is  easy  to  understand  what  it  was  that  brought  the 
tears  to  Rodolphe's  eyes. 

In  love,  as  perhaps  in  all  else,  there  are  certain  circum- 
stances, trivial  in  themselves,  but  the  outcome  of  a  thousand 
little  previous  incidents,  of  which  the  importance  is  immense,  as 
an  epitome  of  the  past  and  as  a  link  with  the  future.  A 
hundred  times  already  we  have  felt  the  preciousness  of  the 
one  we  love ;  but  a  trifle — the  perfect  touch  of  two  souls 
united  during  a  walk  perhaps  by  a  single  word,  by  some 
unlooked-for  proof  of  affection — will  carry  the  feeling  to  its 
supremest  pitch.  In  short,  to  express  this  truth  by  an  image 
which  has  been  pre-eminently  successful  from  the  earliest  ages 
of  the  world,  there  are  in  a  long  chain  points  of  attachment 

Y 


342  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

needed  where  the  cohesion  is  stronger  than  in  the  intermediate 
loops  of  rings.  This  recognition  between  Rodolphe  and 
Francesca,  at  this  party,  in  the  face  of  the  world,  was  one  of 
those  intense  moments  which  join  the  future  to  the  past,  and 
rivet  a  real  attachment  more  deeply  in  the  heart.  It  was 
perhaps  of  these  incidental  rivets  that  Bossuet  spoke  when  he 
compared  to  them  the  rarity  of  happy  moments  in  our  lives — 
he  who  had  such  a  living  and  secret  experience  of  love. 

Next  to  the  pleasure  of  admiring  the  woman  we  love  comes 
that  of  seeing  her  admired  by  every  one  else.  Rodolphe  was 
enjoying  both  at  once.  Love  is  a  treasury  of  memories,  and 
though  Rodolphe's  was  already  full,  he  added  to  it  pearls  of 
great  price  ;  smiles  shed  aside  for  him  alone,  stolen  glances, 
tones  in  her  singing  which  Francesca  addressed  to  him  alone, 
but  which  made  Tinti  pale  with  jealousy,  they  were  so  much 
applauded.  All  his  strength  of  desire,  the  special  expression 
of  his  soul,  was  thrown  over  the  beautiful  Roman,  who  became 
unchangeably  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  his  thoughts 
and  actions.  Rodolphe  loved  as  every  woman  may  dream  of 
being  loved,  with  a  force,  a  constancy,  a  tenacity,  which 
made  Francesca  the  very  substance  of  his  heart ;  he  felt  her 
mingling  with  his  blood  as  purer  blood,  with  his  soul  as  a 
more  perfect  soul ;  she  would  henceforth  underlie  the  least 
efforts  of  his  life  as  the  golden  sand  of  the  Mediterranean  lies 
beneath  the  waves.  In  short,  Rodolphe's  lightest  aspiration 
was  now  a  living  hope. 

At  the  end  of  a  few  days,  Francesca  understood  this  bound- 
less love  ;  'but  it  was  so  natural,  and  so  perfectly  shared  by 
her,  that  it  did  not  surprise  her.     She  was  worthy  of  it. 

"What  is  there  that  is  strange?  "  said  she  to  Rodolphe,  as 
they  walked  on  the  garden  terrace,  when  he  had  been  betrayed 
into  one  of  those  outbursts  of  conceit  which  come  so  natur- 
ally to  Frenchmen  in  the  expression  of  their  feelings — "  what 
is  extraordinary  in  the  fact  of  your  loving  a  young  and  beau- 
tiful woman,  artist  enough  to  be  able  to  earn  her  living  like 


ALBER T  SAVAR ON.  343 

Tinti,  and  of  giving  you  some  of  the  pleasures  of  vanity  ? 
What  lout  but  would  then  become  an  Amadis  ?  This  is  not 
in  question  between  you  and  me.  What  is  needed  is  that  we 
both  love  faithfully,  persistently;  at  a  distance  from  each 
other  for  years,  with  no  satisfaction  but  that  of  knowing  that 
we  are  loved.' ' 

"  Alas  !  "  said  Rodolphe,  "  will  you  not  consider  my  fidelity 
as  devoid  of  all  merit  when  you  see  me  absorbed  in  the  efforts 
of  devouring  ambition  ?  Do  you  imagine  that  I  can  wish  to 
see  you  one  day  exchange  the  fine  name  of  Gandolphini  for 
that  of  a  man  who  is  a  nobody  ?  I  want  to  become  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  men  of  my  country,  to  be  rich,  great — that 
you  may  be  as  proud  of  my  name  as  of  your  own  name  of 
Colonna." 

"  I  should  be  grieved  to  see  you  without  such  sentiments  in 
your  heart,"  she  replied,  with  a  bewitching  smile.  "But  do  not 
wear  yourself  out  too  soon  in  your  ambitious  labors.  Remain 
young.     They  say  that  politics  soon  make  a  man  old." 

One  of  the  rarest  gifts  in  women  is  a  certain  gaiety  which 
does  not  detract  from  tenderness.  This  combination  of  deep 
feeling  with  the  lightness  of  youth  added  an  enchanting  grace 
at  this  moment  to  Francesca's  charms.  This  is  the  key  to  her 
character ;  she  laughs  and  she  is  touched  ;  she  becomes  enthu- 
siastic, and  returns  to  arch  raillery  with  a  readiness,  a  facility, 
which  make  her  the  charming  and  exquisite  creature  she  is, 
and  for  which  her  reputation  is  known  outside  Italy.  Under 
the  graces  of  a  woman  she  conceals  vast  learning,  thanks  to 
the  excessively  monotonous  and  almost  monastic  life  she  led 
in  the  castle  of  the  old  Colonnas. 

This  rich  heiress  was  at  first  intended  for  the  cloister,  being 
the  fourth  child  of  Prince  and  Princess  Colonna ;  but  the 
death  of  her  two  brothers,  and  of  her  elder  sister,  suddenly 
brought  her  out  of  her  retirement,  and  made  her  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  matches  in  the  papal  states.  Her  elder  sister 
had  been  betrothed  to  Prince  Gandolphini,  one  of  the  richest 


344  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

landowners  in  Sicily;  and  Francesca  was  married  to  him 
instead,  so  that  nothing  might  be  changed  in  the  position  of 
the  family.  The  Colonnas  and  Gandolphinis  had  always 
intermarried. 

From  the  age  of  nine  till  she  was  sixteen,  Francesca,  under 
the  direction  of  a  cardinal  of  the  family,  had  read  all  through 
the  library  of  the  Colonnas,  to  make  weight  against  her  ardent 
imagination  by  studying  science,  art,  and  letters.  But  in  these 
studies  she  acquired  the  taste  for  independence  and  liberal 
ideas,  which  threw  her,  with  her  husband,  into  the  ranks  of 
the  revolution.  Rodolphe  had  not  yet  learned  that,  besides 
five  living  languages,  Francesca  knew  Greek,  Latin,  and 
Hebrew.  The  charming  creature  perfectly  understood  that, 
for  a  woman,  the  first  condition  of  being  learned  is  to  keep 
it  deeply  hidden. 

Rodolphe  spent  the  whole  winter  at  Geneva.  This  winter 
passed  like  a  day.  When  spring  returned,  notwithstanding 
the  infinite  delights  of  the  society  of  a  clever  woman, 
wonderfully  well  informed,  young  and  lovely,  the  lover  went 
through  cruel  sufferings,  endured  indeed  with  courage,  but 
which  were  sometimes  legible  in  his  countenance,  and  be- 
trayed themselves  in  his  manners  or  speech,  perhaps  because 
he  believed  that  Francesca  shared  them.  Now  and  again  it 
annoyed  him  to  admire  her  calmness.  Like  an  English- 
woman, she  seemed  to  pride  herself  on  expressing  nothing 
in  her  face ;  its  serenity  defied  love  ;  he  longed  to  see  her 
agitated ;  he  accused  her  of  having  no  feeling,  for  he  believed 
in  the  tradition  which  ascribes  to  Italian  women  a  feverish 
excitability. 

"I  am  a  Roman!"  Francesca  gravely  replied  one  day 
when  she  took  quite  seriously  some  banter  on  this  subject  from 
Rodolphe. 

There  was  a  depth  of  tone  in  her  reply  which  gave  it  the 
appearance  of  scathing  irony,  and  which  set  Rodolphe's 
pulses  throbbing.     The  month  of  May  spread  before  them  the 


ALBERT  SA  VAROK  345 

treasures  of  her  fresh  verdure ;  the  sun  was  sometimes  as 
powerful  as  at  midsummer.  The  two  lovers  happened  to  be 
at  a  part  of  the  terrace  where  the  rock  rises  abruptly  from 
the  lake,  and  where  leaning  over  the  stone  parapet  that 
crowns  the  wall  above  a  flight  of  steps  leading  down  to  a 
landing-stage.  From  the  neighboring  villa,  where  there  is  a 
similar  stairway,  a  boat  presently  shot  out  like  a  swan,  its  flag 
flaming,  its  crimson  awning  spread  over  a  lovely  woman  com- 
fortably reclining  on  red  cushions,  her  hair  wreathed  with  real 
flowers ;  the  boatman  was  a  young  man  dressed  like  a  sailor, 
and  rowing  with  all  the  more  grace  because  he  was  under  the 
lady's  eye. 

"They  are  happy  !  "  exclaimed  Rodolphe,  with  bitter  em- 
phasis. "  Claire  de  Bourgogne,  the  last  survivor  of  the  only 
house  which  could  ever  vie  with  the  royal  family  of  France " 

"  Oh  !  of  a  bastard  branch,  and  that  a  female  line." 

"At  any  rate,  she  is  Vicomtesse  de  Beauseant;  and  she  did 
not " 

"  Did  not  hesitate,  you  would  say,  to  bury  herself  here 
with  Monsieur  Gaston  de  Nueil,"  replied  the  daughter  of  the 
Colonnas.  "  She  is  only  a  Frenchwoman  ;  I  am  an  Italian, 
my  dear  sir  !  " 

Francesca  turned  away  from  the  parapet,  leaving  Rodolphe, 
and  went  to  the  farther  end  of  the  terrace,  whence  there  is  a 
wide  prospect  of  the  lake.  Watching  her  as  she  slowly  walked 
away,  Rodolphe  suspected  that  he  had  wounded  her  soul,  at 
once  so  simple  and  so  wise,  so  proud  and  so  humble.  It 
turned  him  cold ;  he  followed  Francesca,  who  signed  to  him 
to  leave  her  to  herself.  But  he  did  not  heed  the  warning, 
and  detected  her  wiping  away  her  tears.  Tears  !  in  so  strong 
a  nature. 

"  Francesca,"  said  he,  taking  her  hand,  "  is  there  a  single 
regret  in  your  heart?" 

She  was  silent,  disengaged  her  hand  which  held  her  era* 
broidered  handkerchief,  and  again  dried  her  eyes. 


346  ALBERT  SAVA RON. 

"  Forgive  me!"  he  said.  And  with  a  rush,  he  kissed  her 
eyes  to  wipe  away  the  tears. 

Francesca  did  not  seem  aware  of  his  passionate  impulse,  she 
was  so  violently  agitated.  Rodolphe,  thinking  she  consented, 
grew  bolder ;  he  put  his  arm  round  her,  clasped  her  to  his 
heart,  and  snatched  a  kiss.  But  she  freed  herself  by  a  dig- 
nified movement  of  offended  modesty,  and,  standing  a  yard 
off,  she  looked  at  him  without  anger,  but  with  firm  deter- 
mination. 

"  Go  this  evening,"  she  said.  "  We  meet  no  more  till  we 
meet  at  Naples.' * 

The  order  was  stern,  but  it  was  obeyed,  for  it  was  Fran- 
cesca's  will. 

On  his  return  to  Paris,  Rodolphe  found  in  his  rooms  a  por- 
trait of  Princess  Gandolphini  painted  by  Schinner,  as  Schinner 
can  paint.  The  artist  had  passed  through  Geneva  on  his  way 
to  Italy.  As  he  had  positively  refused  to  paint  the  portraits 
of  several  women,  Rodolphe  did  not  believe  that  the  Prince, 
anxious  as  he  was  for  a  portrait  of  his  wife,  would  be  able  to 
conquer  the  great  painter's  objections ;  but  Francesca,  no 
doubt,  had  bewitched  him,  and  obtained  from  him — which 
was  almost  a  miracle — an  original  portrait  for  Rodolphe,  and 
a  duplicate  for  Emilio.  She  told  him  this  in  a  charming  and 
delightful  letter,  in  which  the  mind  indemnified  itself  for  the 
reserve  required  by  the  worship  of  the  proprieties.  The  lover 
replied.  Thus  began,  never  to  cease,  a  regular  correspond- 
ence between  Rodolphe  and  Francesca,  and  which  was  the 
only  indulgence  that  they  allowed  themselves  through  the 
many  years  following. 

Rodolphe,  possessed  by  an  ambition  sanctified  by  his  love, 
set  to  work.  First  he  longed  to  make  his  fortune,  and  risked 
his  all  in  an  undertaking  to  which  he  devoted  all  his  faculties 
as  well  as  his  capital ;  but  he,  an  inexperienced  youth,  had  to 
contend  against  duplicity,  which  won  the  day.     Thus  three 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  847 

years  were  lost  in  a  vast  enterprise,  three  years  of  struggling 
and  courage. 

The  Villele  ministry  fell  just  when  Rodolphe  was  ruined. 
The  valiant  lover  thought  he  would  seek  in  politics  what  com- 
mercial industry  had  refused  him  ;  but  before  braving  the 
storms  of  this  career,  he  went,  all  wounded  and  sick  at  heart, 
to  have  his  bruises  healed  and  his  courage  revived  at  Naples, 
where  the  Prince  and  Princess  had  been  reinstated  in  their 
place  and  rights  on  the  King's  accession.  This,  in  the  midst 
of  his  warfare,  was  a  respite  full  of  delights  ;  he  spent  three 
months  at  the  Villa  Gandolphini,  rocked  in  hope. 

Rodolphe  then  began  again  to  construct  his  fortune.  His 
talents  were  already  known  ;  he  was  about  to  attain  the  de- 
sires of  his  ambitions  ;  a  high  position  was  promised  him  as 
the  reward  of  his  zeal,  his  devotion,  and  his  past  services,  when 
the  storm  of  July,  1830,  broke,  and  again  his  bark  was  swamped. 

She,  and  God  !  These  are  the  only  witnesses  of  the  brave 
efforts,  the  daring  attempts  of  a  young  man  gifted  with  fine 
qualities,  but  to  whom,  so  far,  the  protection  of  luck — the  god 
of  fools — has  been  denied.  And  this  indefatigable  wrestler, 
upheld  by  love,  comes  back  to  fresh  struggles,  lighted  on  his 
way  by  an  always  friendly  eye,  an  ever-faithful  heart. 

Lovers  !     Pray  for  him  ! 


As  she  finished  this  narrative,  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville's 
cheeks  were  on  fire  ;  there  was  a  fever  in  her  blood.  She  was 
crying — but  with  rage.  This  little  novel,  inspired  by  the 
literary  style  then  in  fashion,  was  the  first  reading  of  the  kind 
that  Rosalie  had  ever  had  the  chance  of  devouring.  Love 
was  depicted  in  it,  if  not  by  a  master-hand,  at  any  rate  by  a 
man  who  seemed  to  give  his  own  impressions;  and  truth, 
even  if  unskilled,  could  not  fail  to  touch  a  virgin  soul.  Here 
lay  the  secret  of  Rosalie's  terrible  agitation,  of  her  fever  and 
her  tears ;  she  was  jealous  of  Francesca  Colonna. 


348  ALBERT  SAVAR6N. 

She  never  for  an  instant  doubted  the  sincerity  of  this 
poetical  flight ;  Albert  had  taken  pleasure  in  telling  the  story 
of  his  passion,  while  changing  the  names  of  persons  and  per- 
haps of  places.  Rosalie  was  possessed  by  infernal  curiosity. 
What  woman  but  would,  like  her,  have  wanted  to  know  her 
rival's  name — for  she  too  loved  !  As  she  read  these  pages,  to 
her  really  contagious,  she  had  said  solemnly  to  herself,  "I 
love  him  !  "  She  loved  Albert,  and  felt  in  her  heart  a  gnaw- 
ing desire  to  fight  for  him,  to  snatch  him  from  this  unknown 
rival.  She  reflected  that  she  knew  nothing  of  music,  and 
that  she  was  not  beautiful. 

"  He  will  never  love  me!"  thought  she. 

This  conclusion  aggravated  her  anxiety  to  know  whether 
she  might  not  be  mistaken,  whether  Albert  really  loved  an 
Italian  princess,  and  was  loved  by  her.  In  the  course  of  this 
fateful  night,  the  power  of  swift  decision,  which  had  charac- 
terized the  famous  Watteville,  was  fully  developed  in  his 
descendant.  She  devised  those  whimsical  schemes,  round 
which  hovers  the  imagination  of  most  young  girls  when,  in 
the  solitude  to  which  some  injudicious  mothers  confine  them, 
they  are  aroused  by  some  tremendous  event  which  the  system 
of  repression  to  which  they  are  subjected  could  neither  foresee 
nor  prevent.  She  dreamed  of  descending  by  a  ladder  from 
the  kiosk  into  the  garden  of  the  house  occupied  by  Albert ; 
of  taking  advantage  of  the  lawyer  being  asleep  to  look 
through  the  window  into  his  private  room.  She  thought  of 
writing  to  him,  or  of  bursting  the  fetters  of  Besancon  society 
by  introducing  Albert  to  the  drawing-room  of  the  Hotel  de 
Rupt.  This  enterprise,  which  to  the  Abbe  de  Grancey  even 
would  have  seemed  the  climax  of  the  impossible,  was  a  mere 
passing  thought. 

M  Ah  !  "  said  she  to  herself,  "  my  father  has  a  dispute  pend- 
ing as  to  his  land  at  les  Rouxey.  I  will  go  there  !  If  there 
is  no  lawsuit,  I  will  manage  to  make  one,  and  he  shall  come 
into  our  drawing-room  !  "  she  cried,  as  she  sprang  out  of  bed 


ALBER  T  S AVAR  ON.  34$ 

and  to  the  window  to  look  at  the  fascinating  gleam  which 
shone  through  Albert's  lights.  The  clock  struck  one ;  he  was 
still  asleep. 

iS  I  shall  see  him  when  he  gets  up  ;  perhaps  he  will  come  to 
his  window." 

At  this  instant  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  was  witness  to 
an  incident  which  promised  to  place  in  her  power  the  means 
of  knowing  Albert's  secrets.  By  the  light  of  the  moon  she 
saw  a  pair  of  arms  stretched  out  from  the  kiosk  to  help  Jerome, 
Albert's  servant,  to  get  across  the  coping  of  the  wall  and  step 
into  the  little  building.  In  Jerome's  accomplice  Rosalie  at 
once  recognized  Mariette  the  lady's  maid. 

"  Mariette  and  Jerome  !  "  said  she  to  herself.  "  Mariette, 
such  an  ugly  girl !  Certainly  they  must  be  ashamed  of  them- 
selves." 

Though  Mariette  was  horribly  ugly  and  six-and-thirty,  she 
had  inherited  several  plots  of  land.  She  had  been  seventeen 
years  with  Madame  de  Watteville,  who  valued  her  highly  for 
her  bigotry,  her  honesty,  and  long  service,  and  she  had  no 
doubt  saved  money  and  invested  her  wages  and  perquisites. 
Hence,  earning  about  ten  louis  a  year,  she  probably  had  by 
this  time,  including  compound  interest  and  her  little  inherit- 
ance, not  less  than  ten  thousand  francs. 

In  Jerome's  eyes  ten  thousand  francs  could  alter  the  laws  of 
optics  ■  he  saw  in  Mariette  a  neat  figure ;  he  did  not  perceive 
the  pits  and  seams  which  virulent  smallpox  had  left  on  her 
flat,  parched  face ;  to  him  the  crooked  mouth  was  straight ; 
and  ever  since  Savaron,  by  taking  him  into  his  service,  had 
brought  him  so  near  to  the  Wattevilles'  house,  he  had  laid 
siege  systematically  to  the  maid,  who  was  as  prim  and  sancti- 
monious as  her  mistress,  and  who,  like  every  ugly  old  maid, 
was  far  more  exacting  than  the  handsomest. 

If  the  night-scene  in  the  kiosk  is  thus  fully  accounted  for  to 
all  perspicacious  readers,  it  was  not  so  to  Rosalie,  though  she 
derived  from  it  the  most  dangerous  lesson  that  can  be  given,, 


350  ALBERT  S AVAR  ON. 

that  of  a  bad  example.  A  mother  brings  her  daughter  up 
strictly,  keeps  her  under  her  wing  for  seventeen  years,  and 
then,  in  one  hour,  a  servant-girl  destroys  the  long  and  painful 
work,  sometimes  by  a  word,  often  indeed  by  a  gesture  ! 
Rosalie  got  into  bed  again,  not  without  considering  how  she 
might  take  advantage  of  her  discovery. 

Next  morning,  as  she  went  to  mass  accompanied  by  Mariette 
— her  mother  was  not  well — Rosalie  took  the  maid's  arm, 
which  surprised  the  country  wench  not  a  little. 

"Mariette,"  said  she,  "  is  Jerome  in  his  master's  confi- 
dence? " 

"I  do  not  know,  mademoiselle." 

"Do  not  play  the  innocent  with  me,"  said  Mademoiselle 
de  Watteville  drily.  "  You  let  him  kiss  you  last  night  under 
the  kiosk ;  I  no  longer  wonder  that  you  so  warmly  approved 
of  my  mother's  ideas  for  the  improvements  she  planned." 

Rosalie  could  feel  how  Mariette  was  trembling  by  the  shak- 
ing of  her  arm. 

"I  wish  you  no  ill,"  Rosalie  went  on.  "Be  quite  easy; 
I  shall  not  say  a  word  to  my  mother,  and  you  can  meet 
Jdrome  as  often  as  you  please." 

"But,  mademoiselle,"  replied  Mariette,  "it  is  perfectly 
respectable;  Jerome  honestly  means  to  marry  me " 

"  But  then,"  said  Rosalie,  "  why  meet  at  night  ?  " 

Mariette  was  completely  dumfounded,  and  could  make  no 
reply. 

"  Listen,  Mariette;  I  am  in  love  too  !  In  secret  and  with- 
out any  return.  I  am,  after  all,  my  father's  and  mother's 
only  child.  You  have  more  to  hope  for  from  me  than  from 
any  one  else  in  the  world " 

"  Certainly,  mademoiselle,  and  you  may  count  on  us  for  life 
or  death,"  exclaimed  Mariette,  rejoiced  at  the  unexpected 
turn  of  affairs. 

"In  the  first  place,  silence  for  silence,"  said  Rosalie.  "I 
will  not  marry  Monsieur  de  Soulas ;  but  one  thing  I  will  have, 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  351 

and  must  have  ;  my  help  and  favor  are  yours  on  one  condition 
only." 

"What  is  that?" 

"I  must  see  the  letters  which  Monsieur  Savaron  sends  to 
the  post  by  Jerome." 

"  But  what  for?  "  said  Mariette  in  alarm. 

"Oh!  merely  to  read  them,  and  you  yourself  shall  post 
them  afterwards.     It  will  cause  a  little  delay;  that  is  all." 

At  this  moment  they  went  into  church,  and  each  of  them, 
instead  of  reading  the  order  of  mass,  fell  into  her  own  train 
of  thought. 

"  Dear,  dear,  how  many  sins  are  there  in  all  that  ?  "  thought 
Mariette. 

Rosalie,  whose  soul,  brain,  and  heart  were  completely 
upset  by  reading  the  story,  by  this  time  regarded  it  as 
history,  written  for  her  rival.  By  dint  of  thinking  of  noth- 
ing else,  like  a  child,  she  ended  by  believing  that  the 
Eastern  Review  was  no  doubt  forwarded  to  Albert's  lady- 
love. 

"Oh  !  "  said  she  to  herself,  her  head  buried  in  her  hands 
in  the  attitude  of  a  person  lost  in  prayer ;  "  Oh  !  how  can  I 
get  my  father  to  look  through  the  list  of  people  to  whom  the 
Review  is  sent?  " 

After  breakfast  she  took  a  turn  in  the  garden  with  her 
father,  coaxing  and  cajoling  him,  and  brought  him  to  the 
kiosk. 

"  Do  you  suppose,  my  dear  little  papa,  that  our  Review  is 
ever  read  abroad  ?  ' ' 

"  It  is  but  just  started " 

"  Well,  I  will  wager  that  it  is." 

"It  is  hardly  possible." 

"Just  go  and  find  out,  and  note  the  names  of  any  sub- 
scribers out  of  France." 

Two  hours  later  Monsieur  de  Watteville  said  to  his 
daughter — 


352  ALBERT  SA  VARON. 

"I  was  right;  there  is  not  one  foreign  subscriber  as  yet. 
They  hope  to  get  some  at  Neufchatel,  at  Berne,  and  at 
Geneva.  One  copy  is,  in  fact,  sent  to  Italy,  but  it  is  not 
paid  for — to  a  Milanese  lady  at  her  country  house  at  Bel- 
girate,  on  Lago  Maggiore." 

"  What  is  her  name  ?  " 

"  The  Duchesse  d'Argaiolo." 

"  Do  you  know  her,  papa  ?  " 

V  I  have  heard  about  her.  She  was  by  birth  a  Princess 
Soderini,  a  Florentine,  a  very  great  lady,  and  quite  as  rich  as 
her  husband,  who  has  one  of  the  largest  fortunes  in  Lom- 
bardy.  Their  villa  on  the  Lago  Maggiore  is  one  of  the  sights 
of  Italy." 

Two  days  after,  Mariette  placed  the  following  letter  in 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville's  hands  : 

Albert  Savaron  to  Leopold  Hannequin. 

"Yes,  'tis  so,  my  dear  friend;  I  am  at  Besancon,  while 
you  thought  I  was  traveling.  I  would  not  tell  you  anything 
till  success  should  begin,  and  now  it  is  dawning.  Yes,  my 
dear  Leopold,  after  so  many  abortive  undertakings,  over 
which  I  have  shed  the  best  of  my  blood,  have  wasted  so  many 
efforts,  spent  so  much  courage,  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to 
do  as  you  have  done — to  start  on  a  beaten  path,  on  the  high- 
road, as  the  longest  but  the  safest.  I  can  see  you  jump  with 
surprise  in  your  lawyer's  chair  ! 

"But  do  not  suppose  that  anything  is  changed  in  my  per- 
sonal life,  of  which  you  alone  in  the  world  know  the  secret, 
and  that  under  the  reservations  she  insists  on.  I  did  not  tell 
you,  my  friend  ;  but  I  was  horribly  weary  of  Paris.  The 
outcome  of  the  first  enterprise,  on  which  I  had  founded  all 
my  hopes,  and  which  came  to  a  bad  end  in  consequence  of 
the  utter  rascality  of  my  two  partners,  who  combined  to  cheat 
and  fleece  me — me,  though  everything  was  done  by  my  energy 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON1.  35* 

—made  me  give  up  the  pursuit  of  a  fortune  after  the  loss  of 
three  years  of  my  life.  One  of  these  years  was  spent  in  the 
law  courts,  and  perhaps  I  should  have  come  worse  out  of  the 
scrape  if  I  had  not  been  made  to  study  law  when  I  was 
twenty. 

"  I  made  up  my  mind  to  go  into  politics  solely,  to  the 
end  that  I  may  some  day  find  my  name  in  a  list  for  promo- 
tion to  the  Senate  under  the  title  of  Comte  Albert  Savaron 
de  Savarus,  and  so  revive  in  France  a  good  name  now  extinct 
in  Belgium — though  indeed  I  am  neither  legitimate  nor  legit- 
imized." 

"Ah!  I  knew  it!  He  is  of  noble  birth !"  exclaimed 
Rosalie,  dropping  the  letter. 

"  You  know  how  conscientiously  I  studied,  how  faithful 
and  useful  I  was  as  an  obscure  journalist,  and  how  excellent 
a  secretary  to  the  statesman  who,  on  his  part,  was  true  to  me 
in  1829.  Flung  to  the  depths  once  more  by  the  revolution 
of  July,  just  when  my  name  was  becoming  known,  at  the  very 
moment  when,  as  master  of  appeals,  I  was  about  to  find  my 
place  as  a  necessary  wheel  in  the  political  machine,  I  com- 
mitted the  blunder  of  remaining  faithful  to  the  fallen,  and 
fighting  for  them,  without  them.  Oh  !  why  was  I  but  three- 
and-thirty,  and  why  did  I  not  apply  to  you  to  make  me 
eligible?  I  concealed  from  you  all  my  devotedness  and  my 
dangers.  What  would  you  have  ?  I  was  full  of  faith.  We 
should  not  have  agreed. 

"  Ten  months  ago,  when  you  saw  me  so  gay  and  contented, 
writing  my  political  articles,  I  was  in  despair ;  I  foresaw  my 
fate,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven,  with  two  thousand  francs  for 
my  whole  fortune,  without  the  smallest  fame,  just  having 
failed  in  a  noble  undertaking,  the  founding,  namely,  of  a 
daily  paper,  answering  only  to  a  need  of  the  future  instead  of 
appealing  to  the  passions  of  the  moment.  I  did  not  know 
which  way  to  turn,  and  I  felt  my  own  value  !  I  wandered 
about,  gloomy  and  hurt,  through  the  lonely  places  of  Paris — 
23 


354  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

Paris  which  had  slipped  through  my  fingers — thinking  of  my 
crushed  ambitions,  but  never  giving  them  up.  Oh,  what 
frantic  letters  I  wrote  at  that  time  to  her,  my  second  con- 
science, my  other  self!  Sometimes,  I  would  say  to  myself, 
*  Why  did  I  sketch  so  vast  a  programme  of  life  ?  Why 
demand  everything?  Why  not  wait  for  happiness  while 
devoting  myself  to  some  mechanical  employment.' 

"  I  then  looked  about  me  for  some  modest  appointment  by 
which  I  might  live.  I  was  about  to  get  the  editorship  .of  a 
paper  under  a  manager  who  did  not  know  much  about  it,  a 
man  of  wealth  and  ambition,  when  I  took  fright.  '  Would 
she  ever  accept  as  her  husband  a  man  who  had  stooped  so 
low  ?  '  I  wondered. 

"  This  reflection  made  me  two-and-twenty  again.  But,  oh, 
my  dear  Leopold,  how  the  soul  is  worn  by  these  perplexities ! 
What  must  not  caged  eagles  surfer,  and  imprisoned  lions  ! 
They  suffer  what  Napoleon  suffered,  not  at  Saint  Helena,  but 
on  the  Quay  of  the  Tuileries,  on  the  ioth  of  August,  when 
he  saw  Louis  XVI.  defending  himself  so  badly  while  he  could 
have  quelled  the  insurrection  ;  as  he  actually  did,  on  the  same 
spot,  a  little  later,  in  Vendemiaire.  Well,  my  life  has  been 
a  torment  of  that  kind,  extending  over  four  years.  How 
many  a  speech  to  the  Chamber  have  I  not  delivered  in  the 
deserted  alleys  of  the  Bois  de  Boulogne !  These  wasted 
harangues  have  at  any  rate  sharpened  my  tongue  and  accus- 
tomed my  mind  to  formulate  its  ideas  in  words.  And  while 
I  was  undergoing  this  secret  torture,  you  were  getting  married, 
you  had  paid  for  your  business,  you  were  made  law-clerk  to 
the  mayor  of  your  district,  after  gaining  the  cross  for  a  wound 
at  Saint-Merri. 

"  Now,  listen.  When  I  was  a  small  boy  and  tortured  cock- 
chafers, the  poor  insects  had  one  form  of  struggle  which  used 
almost  to  put  me  in  a  fever.  It  was  when  I  saw  them  making 
repeated  efforts  to  fly  but  without  getting  away,  though  they 
could  spread  their  wings.     We  used  to  say,  *  They  are  mark- 


ALBER T  SAVAR ON.  355 

ing  time.'  Now,  was  this  sympathy  ?  Was  it  a  vision  of  my 
own  future  ?  Oh  !  to  spread  my  wings  and  yet  be  unable  to 
fly!  That  has  been  my  predicament  since  that  fine  under- 
taking by  which  I  was  disgusted,  but  which  has  now  made 
four  families  rich. 

"At  last,  seven  months  ago,  I  determined  to  make  myself 
a  name  at  the  Paris  bar,  seeing  how  many  vacancies  had  been 
left  by  the  promotion  of  several  lawyers  to  eminent  positions. 
But  when  I  remembered  the  rivalry  I  had  seen  among  men  of 
the  press,  and  how  difficult  it  is  to  achieve  anything  of  any 
kind  in  Paris,  the  arena  where  so  many  champions  meet,  I 
came  to  a  determination  painful  to  myself,  but  certain  in  its 
results,  and  perhaps  quicker  than  any  other.  In  the  course  of 
our  conversations  you  had  given  me  a  picture  of  the  society 
of  Besancon,  of  the  impossibility  for  a  stranger  to  get  on 
there,  to  produce  the  smallest  effect,  to  get  into  society,  or  to 
succeed  in  anyway  whatever.  It  was  there  that  I  determined 
to  set  up  my  flag,  thinking,  and  rightly,  that  I  should  meet 
with  no  opposition,  but  find  myself  alone  to  canvass  for  the 
election.  The  people  of  the  Comte  will  not  meet  the  out- 
sider ?  The  outsider  will  not  meet  them  !  They  refuse  to 
admit  him  to  their  drawing-rooms,  he  will  never  go  there  ! 
He  never  shows  himself  anywhere,  not  even  in  the  streets ! 
But  there  is  one  class  that  elects  the  deputies — the  commercial 
class.  I  am  going  especially  to  study  commercial  questions, 
with  which  I  am  already  familiar  ;  I  will  gain  their  lawsuits, 
I  will  effect  compromises,  I  will  be  the  greatest  pleader  in 
Besancon.  By-and-by  I  will  start  a  Review,  in  which  I  will 
defend  the  interests  of  the  country,  will  create  them,  or  pre- 
serve them,  or  resuscitate  them.  When  I  shall  have  won  a 
sufficient  number  of  votes,  my  name  will  come  out  of  the  urn. 
For  a  long  time  the  unknown  barrister  will  be  treated  with 
contempt,  but  some  circumstance  will  arise  to  bring  him  to 
the  front — some  unpaid  defense,  or  a  case  which  no  other 
pleader  will  undertake. 


356  ALBER  T  SA  VAR  ON. 

"  Well,  my  dear  Leopold,  I  packed  up  my  books  in  eleven 
cases,  I  bought  such  law-books  as  might  prove  useful,  and  I 
sent  everything  off,  furniture  and  all,  by  carrier  to  Besancon. 
I  collected  my  diplomas,  and  I  went  to  bid  you  good-bye. 
The  mail-coach  dropped  me  at  Besancon,  where,  in  three 
days'  time,  I  chose  a  little  set  of  rooms  looking  out  over  some 
gardens.  I  sumptuously  arranged  the  mysterious  private  room 
where  I  spend  my  nights  and  days,  and  where  the  portrait  of 
my  divinity  reigns — of  her  to  whom  my  life  is  dedicated,  who 
fills  it  wholly,  who  is  the  mainspring  of  my  efforts,  the  secret 
of  my  courage,  the  cause  of  my  talents.  Then,  as  soon  as  the 
furniture  and  books  had  come,  I  engaged  an  intelligent  man- 
servant, and  there  I  sat  for  five  months  like  a  hibernating 
marmot. 

"  My  name  had,  however,  been  entered  on  the  list  of  law- 
yers in  the  town.  At  last  I  was  called  one  day  to  defend  an 
unhappy  wretch  at  the  assizes,  no  doubt  in  order  to  hear  me 
speak  for  once  !  One  of  the  most  influential  merchants  of 
Besancon  was  on  the  jury ;  he  had  a  difficult  task  to  fulfill ;  I 
did  my  utmost  for  the  man,  and  my  success  was  absolute  and 
complete.  My  client  was  innocent ;  I  very  dramatically  se- 
cured the  arrest  of  the  real  criminals,  who  had  come  forward 
as  witnesses.  In  short,  the  court  and  the  public  were  united 
in  their  admiration.  I  managed  to  save  the  examining  magis- 
trate's pride  by  pointing  out  the  impossibility  of  detecting  a 
plot  so  skillfully  planned. 

"  Then  I  had  to  fight  a  case  for  my  merchant,  and  won  his 
suit.  The  Cathedral  Chapter  next  chose  me  to  defend  a  tre- 
mendous action  against  the  town,  which  had  been  going  on 
for  four  years  ;  I  won  that.  Thus  after  three  trials,  I  had  be- 
come the  most  famous  advocate  of  Franche-Comte. ' 

"  But  I  bury  my  life  in  the  deepest  mystery,  and  so  hide 
my  aims.  I  have  adopted  habits  which  prevent  my  accepting 
any  invitations.  I  am  only  to  be  consulted  between  six  and 
eight  in  the  morning ;  I  go  to  bed  after  my  dinner,  and  work 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  357 

at  night.  The  vicar-general,  a  man  of  parts,  and  very  influen- 
tial, who  placed  the  chapter's  case  in  my  hands  after  they 
had  lost  it  in  the  lower  court,  of  course  professed  their  grati- 
tude. '  Monsieur,'  said  I,  '  I  will  win  your  suit,  but  I  want 
no  fee ;  I  want  more  '  (start  of  alarm  on  the  abbe's  part). 
'  You  must  know  that  I  am  a  great  loser  by  putting  myself 
forward  in  antagonism  to  the  town.  I  came  here  only  to 
leave  the  place  as  deputy.  I  mean  to  engage  only  in  com- 
mercial cases,  because  commercial  men  return  the  members  \ 
they  will  distrust  me  if  I  defend  "the  priests" — for  to  them 
you  are  simply  the  priests.  If  I  undertake  your  defense,  it  is 
because  I  was,  in  1828,  private  secretary  to  such  a  minister ' 
(again  a  start  of  surprise  on  the  part  of  my  abbe),  '  and  mas- 
ter of  appeals,  under  the  name  of  Albert  de  Savarus  '  (an- 
other start).  '  I  have  remained  faithful  to  monarchical  opin- 
ions ;  but,  as  you  have  not  the  majority  of  votes  in  Besancon, 
I  must  gain  votes  among  the  citizens.  So  the  fee  I  ask  of  you 
is  the  votes  you  may  be  able  secretly  to  secure  for  me  at  the 
opportune  moment.  Let  us  each  keep  our  own  counsel,  and 
I  will  defend,  for  nothing,  every  case  to  which  a  priest  of  this 
diocese  may  be  a  party.  Not  a  word  about  my  previous  life, 
and  we  will  be  true  to  each  other.' 

"  When  he  came  to  thank  me  afterwards,  he  gave  me  a 
note  for  five  hundred  francs,  and  said  in  my  ear,  '  The  votes 
are  a  bargain  all  the  same.'  I  have  in  the  course  of  five 
interviews  made  a  friend,  I  think,  of  this  vicar-general. 

"  Now  I  am  overwhelmed  with  business,  and  I  understand 
no  cases  but  those  brought  me  by  merchants,  saying  that  com- 
mercial questions  are  my  specialty.  This  line  of  conduct 
attaches  business  men  to  me,  and  allows  me  to  make  friends 
with  influential  persons.  So  all  goes  well.  Within  a  few 
months  I  shall  have  found  a  house  to  purchase  in  Besancon, 
so  as  to  secure  a  qualification.  I  count  on  your  lending  me 
the  necessary  capital  for  this  investment.  If  I  should  die,  if 
I  should  fail,  the  loss  would  be  too  small  to  be  any  considera- 


358  ALBER T  SA  VARON. 

tion  between  you  and  me.  You  will  get  the  interest  out  of 
the  rental,  and  I  shall  take  good  care  to  lookout  for  some- 
thing cheap,  so  that  you  may  lose  nothing  by  this  mortgage, 
which  is  indispensable. 

"Oh  !  my  dear  Leopold,  no  gambler  with  the  last  remains 
of  his  fortune  in  his  pocket,  bent  on  staking  it  at  the  Cercle 
des  Etrangers  for  the  last  time  one  night,  when  he  must  come 
away  rich  or  ruined,  ever  felt  such  a  perpetual  ringing  in  his 
ears,  such  a  nervous  moisture  on  his  palms,  such  a  fevered 
tumult  in  his  brain,  such  inward  qualms  in  his  body  as  I  go 
through  every  day  now  that  I  am  playing  my  last  card  in  the 
game  of  ambition.  Alas !  my  dear  and  only  friend,  for 
nearly  ten  years  now  have  I  been  struggling.  This  battle 
with  men  and  things,  in  which  I  have  unceasingly  poured  out 
my  strength  and  energy,  and  so  constantly  worn  the  springs 
of  desire,  has,  so  to  speak,  undermined  my  vitality.  With 
all  the  appearance  of  a  strong  man  of  good  health,  I  feel 
myself  a  wreck.  Every  day  carries  with  it  a  shred  of  my  in- 
most life.  At  every  fresh  effort  I  feel  that  I  should  never  be 
able  to  begin  again.  I  have  no  power,  no  vigor  left  but  for 
happiness ;  and  if  it  should  never  come  to  crown  my  head 
with  roses,  the  me  that  is  really  me  would  cease  to  exist,  I 
should  be  a  ruined  thing.  I  should  wish  for  nothing  more  in 
the  world.  I  should  want  to  cease  from  living.  You  know 
that  power  and  fame,  the  vast  moral  empire  that  I  crave,  is 
but  secondary  ;  it  is  to  me  only  a  means  to  happiness,  the 
pedestal  for  my  idol. 

"To  reach  the  goal  and  die,  like  the  runner  of  antiquity! 
To  see  fortune  and  death  stand  on  the  threshold  hand  in 
hand  !  To  win  the  beloved  woman  just  when  love  is  extinct ! 
To  lose  the  faculty  of  enjoyment  after  earning  the  right  to  be 
happy  !     Of  how  many  men  has  this  been  the  fate  ! 

"  But  there  surely  is  a  moment  when  Tantalus  rebels,  crosses 
his  arms,  and  defies  hell,  throwing  up  his  part  of  the  eternal 
dupe.    That  is  what  I  shall  come  to  if  anything  should  thwart 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  369 

my  plan  ;  if,  after  stooping  to  the  dust  of  provincial  life,  prowl- 
ing like  a  starving  tiger  round  these  tradesmen,  these  electors, 
to  secure  their  votes ;  if,  after  wrangling  in  these  squalid 
cases,  and  giving  them  my  time — the  time  I  might  have  spent 
on  Lago  Maggiore,  seeing  the  waters  she  sees,  basking  in  her 
gaze,  hearing  her  voice — if,  after  all,  I  failed  to  scale  the 
tribune  and  conquer  the  glory  that  should  surround  the  name 
that  is  to  succeed  to  that  of  Argaiolo  !  Nay,  more  than  this, 
Leopold  ;  there  are  days  when  I  feel  a  heavy  languor ;  deep 
disgust  surges  up  from  the  depths  of  my  soul,  especially  when, 
abandoned  to  long  day-dreams,  I  have  lost  myself  in  anticipa- 
tion of  the  joys  of  blissful  love  !  May  it  not  be  that  our  de- 
sire has  only  a  certain  modicum  of  power,  and  that  it  perishes, 
perhaps,  of  a  too  lavish  effusion  of  its  essence?  For,  after 
all,  at  this  present,  my  life  is  fair,  illuminated  by  faith,  work, 
and  love. 

"  Farewell,  my  friend ;  I  send  love  to  your  children,  and 
beg  you  to  remember  me  to  your  excellent  wife.     Yours, 

"Albert." 

Rosalie  read  this  letter  twice  through,  and  its  general  purport 
was  stamped  on  her  heart.  She  suddenly  saw  the  whole  of 
Albert's  previous  existence,  for  her  quick  intelligence  threw 
light  on  all  the  details,  and  enabled  her  to  take  it  all  in.  By 
adding  this  information  to  the  little  novel  published  in  the 
Review,  she  now  fully  understood  Albert.  Of  course,  she 
exaggerated  the  greatness,  remarkable  as  it  was,  of  this  lofty 
soul  and  potent  will,  and  her  love  for  Albert  thenceforth 
became  a  passion,  its  violence  enhanced  by  all  the  strength  of 
her  youth,  the  weariness  of  her  solitude,  and  the  unspent 
energy  of  her  character.  Love  is  in  a  young  girl  the  effect 
of  a  natural  law  ;  but  when  her  craving  for  affection  is  centred 
in  an  exceptional  man,  it  is  mingled  with  the  enthusiasm 
which  overflows  in  a  youthful  heart.  Thus  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville  had  in  a   few  days  reached  a  morbid  and  very 


360  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

dangerous  stage  of  enamored  infatuation.  The  Baroness  was 
much  pleased  with  her  daughter,  who,  being  under  the  spell 
of  her  absorbing  thoughts,  never  resisted  her  will,  seemed  to 
be  devoted  to  feminine  occupations,  and  realized  her  mother's 
ideal  of  a  docile  daughter. 

The  lawyer  was  now  engaged  in  court  two  or  three  times  a 
week.  Though  he  was  overwhelmed  with  business  he  found 
time  to  attend  the  trials,  call  on  litigious  merchants,  and 
conduct  the  Review;  keeping  up  his  personal  mystery, 
from  the  conviction  that  the  more  covert  and  hidden  was  his 
influence,  the  more  real  it  would  be.  But  he  neglected  no 
means  of  success,  reading  up  the  list  of  electors  of  Besancon, 
and  finding  out  their  interests,  their  characters,  their  various 
friendships  and  antipathies.  Did  ever  a  cardinal  hoping  to 
be  made  pope  give  himself  more  trouble  ? 

One  evening  Mariette,  on  coming  to  dress  Rosalie  for  an 
evening  party,  handed  to  her,  not  without  many  groans  over  this 
treachery,  a  letter  of  which  the  address  made  Mademoiselle 
de  Watteville  shiver  and  redden  and  turn  pale  again  as  she 
read  the  address : 

To  Madame  la  Duchess e  a*  Argaiolo 
(n£e  Princesse  Soderini), 

At  Belgirate, 

Lago  Maggiore,  Italy. 

In  her  eyes  this  direction  blazed  as  the  words  Mene,  Mene, 
Tekel,  Upharsin,  did  in  the  eyes  of  Belshazzar.  After  concealing 
the  letter,  Rosalie  went  downstairs  to  accompany  her  mother 
to  Madame  de  Chavoncourt's ;  and  as  long  as  the  endless 
evening  lasted,  she  was  tormented  by  remorse  and  scruples. 
She  had  already  felt  shame  at  having  violated  the  secrecy  of 
Albert's  letter  to  Leopold ;  she  had  several  times  asked  her- 
self whether,  if  he  knew  of  her  crime,  infamous  inasmuch  as 
it  necessarily  goes  unpunished,  the  high-minded  Albert  could 


ALBER  T  SA  VAR  ON,  361 

esteem  her.     Her  conscience  answered  an  uncompromising 
"No." 

She  had  expiated  her  sin  by  self-imposed  penances ;  she 
fasted ;  she  mortified  herself  by  remaining  on  her  knees,  her 
arms  outstretched  for  hours,  and  repeating  prayers  all  the  time. 
She  had  compelled  Mariette  to  similar  acts  of  repentance ;  her 
passion  was  mingled  with  genuine  asceticism,  and  was  all  the 
more  dangerous. 

"  Shall  I  read  that  letter,  shall  I  not?"  she  asked  herself, 
while  listening  to  the  Chavoncourt  girls.  One  was  sixteen, 
the  other  seventeen  and  a  half.  Rosalie  looked  upon  her  two 
friends  as  mere  children  because  they  were  not  secretly  in  love. 
"  If  I  read  it,"  she  finally  decided,  after  hesitating  for  an  hour 
between  yes  and  no,  "  it  shall,  at  any  rate,  be  the  last.  Since 
I  have  gone  so  far  as  to  see  what  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  why 
should  I  not  know  what  he  says  to  her?  If  it  is  a  horrible 
crime,  is  it  not  a  proof  of  love  ?  Oh,  Albert  !  am  I  not  your 
love?" 

When  Rosalie  was  in  bed  she  opened  the  letter,  dated  from 
day  to  day,  so  as  to  give  the  Duchess  a  faithful  picture  of 
Albert's  life  and  feelings. 

"  2$th. 

"  My  dear  Soul,  all  is  we]l.  To  my  other  conquests  I  have 
just  added  an  invaluable  one  :  I  have  done  a  service  to.  one  of 
the  most  influential  men  who  work  the  elections.  Like  the 
critics,  who  make  other  men's  reputations  but  can  never  make 
their  own,  he  makes  deputies  though  he  can  never  become  one. 
The  worthy  man  wanted  to  show  his  gratitude  without  loosen- 
ing his  purse-strings  by  saying  to  me,  f  Would  you  care  to  sit 
in  the  Chamber?     I  can  get  you  returned  as  deputy.' 

*MJf  I  ever  made  up  my  mind  to  enter  on  a  political 
career,'  replied  I  hypocritically,  ■  it  would  be  to  devote 
myself  to  the  Comte,  which  I  love,  and  where  I  am  appre- 
ciated.' 

"  *  Well,'  he  said,  *  we  will  persuade  you,  and  through  you 


362  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

we  shall  have  weight  in  the  Chamber,  for  you  will  distinguish 
yourself  there.' 

"And  so,  my  beloved  angel,  say  what  you  will,  my  perse- 
verance will  be  rewarded.  •  Ere  long  I  shall,  from  the  high- 
place  of  the  French  Tribune,  come  before  my  country,  before 
Europe.  My  name  will  be  flung  to  you  by  the  hundred  voices 
of  the  French  press. 

"Yes,  as  you  tell  me,  I  was  old  when  I  came  to  Besancon, 
and  Besancon  has  aged  me  more;  but,  like  Sixtus  V.,  I  shall 
be  young  again  the  day  after  my  election.  I  shall  enter  on 
my  true  life,  my  own  sphere.  Shall  v/e  not  then  stand  in  the 
same  line  ?  Count  Savaron  de  Savarus,  ambassador  I  know 
not  where,  may  surely  marry  a  Princess  Soderini,  the  widow 
of  the  Due  d'Argaiolo  !  Triumph  restores  the  youth  of  men 
who  have  been  preserved  by  incessant  struggles.  Oh,  my 
Life !  with  what  gladness  did  I  fly  from  my  library  to  my 
private  room,  to  tell  your  portrait  of  this  progress  before 
writing  to  you  !  Yes,  the  votes  I  can  command,  those  of 
the  vicar-general,  of  the  persons  I  can  oblige,  and  of  this 
client,  make  my  election  already  sure. 

"  26M. 

"  We  have  entered  on  the  twelfth  year  since  that  blest 
evening  when,  by  a  look,  the  beautiful  Duchess  sealed  the 
promises  made  by  the  exile  Francesca.  You,  dear,  are  thirty- 
two,  I  am  thirty-five;  the  dear  Duke  is  seventy-seven — that  is 
to  say,  ten  years  more  than  yours  and  mine  put  together,  and 
he  still  keeps  well  !  My  patience  is  almost  as  great  as  my 
love,  and  indeed  I  need  a  few  years  yet  to  rise  to  the  level  of 
your  name.  As  you  see,  I  am  in  good  spirits  to-day,  I  can 
laugh  ;  that  is  the  effect  of  hope.  Sadness  or  gladness,  it  all 
comes  to  me  through  you.  The  hope  of  success  always  carries 
me  back  to  the  day  following  that  on  which  I  saw  you  for 
the  first  time,  when  my  life  became  one  with  yours  as  the 
earth  turns  to  the  light.  Qua/  pianto  are  these  eleven  years, 
for  this  is  the  26th  of  December,  the  anniversary  of  my  arrival 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  3G3 

at  your  villa  on  the  Lake  of  Geneva.     For  eleven  years  have  I 

been  crying  to  you,  while  you  shine  like  a  star  set  too  high 

for  man  to  reach  it. 

"  27M. 

"No,  dearest,  do  not  go  to  Milan;  stay  at  Belgirate. 
Milan  terrifies  me.  I  do  not  like  that  odious  Milanese  fashion 
of  chatting  at  the  Scala  every  evening  with  a  dozen  persons, 
among  whom  it  is  hard  if  no  one  says  something  sweet.  To 
me  solitude  is  like  the  lump  of  amber  in  whose  heart  an  insect 
lives  for  ever  in  unchanging  beauty.  Thus  the  heart  and  soul 
of  a  woman  remain  pure  and  unaltered  in  the  form  of  their 
first  youth.     Is  it  the  Tedeschi  that  you  regret  ? 

«  2%th. 

"Is  your  statue  never  to  be  finished?  I  should  wish  to 
have  you  in  marble,  in  painting,  in  miniature,  in  every  pos- 
sible form,  to  beguile  my  impatience.  I  still  am  waiting  for 
the  view  of  Belgirate  from  the  south,  and  that  of  the  balcony ; 
these  are  all  that  I  now  lack.  I  am  so  extremely  busy  that 
to-day  I  can  only  write  you  nothing — but  that  nothing  is 
everything.  Was  it  not  of  nothing  that  God  made  the  world? 
That  nothing  is  a  word,  God's  word  :  I  love  you  ! 

"  30th. 

"Ah!  I  have  received  your  journal.  Thanks  for  your 
punctuality.  So  you  found  great  pleasure  in  seeing  all  the 
details  of  our  first  acquaintance  thus  set  down?  Alas!  even 
while  disguising  them  I  was  sorely  afraid  of  offending  you. 
We  had  no  stories,  and  a  Review  without  stories  is  a  beauty 
without  hair.  Not  being  inventive  by  nature,  and  in  sheer 
despair,  I  took  the  only  poetry  in  my  soul,  the  only  adventure 
m  my  memory,  and  pitched  it  in  the  key  in  which  it  would 
bear  telling ;  nor  did  I  ever  cease  to  think  of  you  while 
writing  the  only  literary  production  that  will  ever  come  from 
my  heart,  I  cannot  say  from  my  pen.  Did  not  the  trans- 
formation of  your  fierce  Sormano  into  Gina  cause  you  to 
laugh  ? 


364  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

"  You  ask  after  my  health.  Well,  it  is  better  than  in  Paris. 
Though  I  work  enormously,  the  peacefulness  of  the  surround- 
ings has  its  effect  on  the  mind.  What  really  tries  and  ages 
me,  dear  angel,  is  the  anguish  of  mortified  vanity,  the  per- 
petual friction  of  Paris  life,  the  struggle  of  rival  ambitions. 
This  peace  is  a  balm. 

"  If  you  could  imagine  the  pleasure  your  letter  gives  me  ! — 
the  long,  kind  letter  in  which  you  tell  me  the  most  trivial 
incidents  of  your  life.  No  !  you  women  can  never  know  to 
what  a  degree  a  true  lover  is  interested  in  these  trifles.  It  was 
an  immense  pleasure  to  see  the  pattern  of  your  new  dress. 
Can  it  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  me  to  know  what  you 
wear  ?  If  your  lofty  brow  is  knit  ?  If  our  writers  amuse  you  ? 
If  Canalis'  songs  delight  you?  I  read  the  books  you  read. 
Even  to  your  boating  on  the  lake;  every  incident  touched  me. 
Your  letter  is  as  lovely,  as  sweet  as  your  soul !  Oh  !  flower 
of  heaven,  perpetually  adored,  could  I  have  lived  without 
those  dear  letters,  which  for  eleven  years  have  upheld  me  in 
my  difficult  path  like  a  light,  like  a  perfume,  like  a  steady 
chant,  like  some  divine  nourishment,  like  everything  which 
can  soothe  and  comfort  life. 

"  Do  not  fail  me  !  If  you  knew  what  anxiety  I  suffer  the 
day  before  they  are  due,  or  the  pain  a  day's  delay  can  give 
me  !  Is  she  ill  ?  Is  he  ?  I  am  midway  between  hell  and 
paradise. 

"  O  mia  cara  diva,  keep  up  your  music,  exercise  your  voice, 
practice.  I  am  enchanted  with  the  coincidence  of  employ- 
ments and  hours  by  which,  though  separated  by  the  Alps,  we 
live  by  precisely  the  same  rule.  The  thought  charms  me  and 
gives  me  courage.  The  first  time  I  undertook  to  plead  here — 
I  forgot  to  tell  you  this — I  fancied  that  you  were  listening  to 
me,  and  I  suddenly  felt  the  flash  of  inspiration  which  lifts  the 
poet  above  mankind.  If  I  am  returned  to  the  Chamber — oh  ! 
you  must  come  to  Paris  to  be  present  at  my  first  appearance 
there ! 


ALBEfi T  SA  VAX  ON.  565 

"  Tpth,  Evening. 

"  Good  heavens,  how  I  love  you !  Alas  !  I  have  in- 
trusted too  much  to  my  love  and  my  hopes.  An  accident 
which  should  sink  that  overloaded  bark  would  end  my  life  ! 
For  three  years  now  I  have  not  seen  you,  and  at  the  thought 
of  going  to  Belgirate  my  heart  beats  so  wildly  that  I  am 
forced  to  stop.  v  To  see  you,  to  hear  that  girlish  caressing 
voice  !  To  embrace  in  my  gaze  that  ivory  skin,  glistening 
under  the  candlelight,  and  through  which  I  can  read  your 
noble  mind  !  To  admire  your  fingers  playing  on  the  keys, 
to  drink  in  your  whole  soul  in  a  look,  in  the  tone  of  an  Oimt 
or  an  Alberto  !  To  walk  by  the  blossoming  orange  trees,  to 
live  a  few  months  in  the  bosom  of  that  glorious  scenery  ! 
That  is  life.  What  folly  it  is  to  run  after  power,  a  name, 
fortune  !  But  at  Belgirate  there  is  everything;  there  is  poetry, 
there  is  glory !  I  ought  to  have  made  myself  your  steward, 
or,  as  that  dear  tyrant  whom  we  cannot  hate  proposed  to  me, 
live  there  as  cavaliere  servente,  only  our  passion  was  too  fierce 
to  allow  of  it. 

"  Farewell,  my  angel,  forgive  me  my  next  fit  of  sadness  in 
consideration  of  this  cheerful  mood  ;  it  has  come  as  a  beam 
of  light  from  the  torch  of  Hope,  which  has  hitherto  seemed 
to  me  a  will-o'-the-wisp." 

"  How  he  loves  her!"  cried  Rosalie,  dropping  the  letter, 
which  seemed  heavy  in  her  hand.  "After  eleven  years,  to 
write  like  this  !  " 

"Mariette,"  said  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  to  her  maid 
next  morning,  "  go  and  post  this  letter.  Tell  Jerome  that  I 
know  all  I  wished  to  know,  and  that  he  is  to  serve  Monsieur 
Albert  faithfully.  We  will  confess  our  sins,  you  and  I,  without 
saying  to  whom  the  letters  belonged,  nor  to  whom  they  were 
going.     I  was  in  the  wrong  ;  I  alone  am  guilty." 

"  Mademoiselle  has  been  crying?"  said  Mariette,  noticing 
Rosalie's  eyes. 


366  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

"  Yes,  but  I  do  not  want  that  my  mother  should  perceive 
it ;  give  me  some  very  cold  water." 

In  the  midst  of  the  storms  of  her  passion  Rosalie  often  lis- 
tened to  the  voice  of  conscience.  Touched  by  the  beautiful 
fidelity  of  these  two  hearts,  she  had  just  said  her  prayers, 
telling  herself  that  there  was  nothing  left  to  her  but  to  be 
resigned,  and  to  respect  the  happiness  of  two  beings  worthy 
of  each  other,  submissive  to  fate,  looking  to  God  for  every 
thing,  without  allowing  themselves  any  criminal  acts  or  wishes. 
She  felt  a  better  woman,  and  had  a  certain  sense  of  satisfac- 
tion after  coming  to  this  resolution,  "inspired  by  the  natural 
rectitude  of  youth.  And  she  was  confirmed  in  it  by  a  girl's 
idea :   She  was  sacrificing  herself  for  him. 

"She  does  not  know  how  to  love,"  thought  she.  "Ah! 
if  it  were  I — I  would  give  up  everything  to  a  man  who  loved 
me  so.  To  be  loved  !  When,  by  whom  shall  I  be  loved  ? 
That  little  Monsieur  de  Soulas  only  loves  my  money ;  if  I 
were  poor,  he  would  not  even  look  at  me." 

"Rosalie,  my  child,  what  are  you  thinking  about?  You 
are  working  beyond  the  outline,"  said  the  Baroness  to  her 
daughter,  who  was  making  worsted-work  slippers  for  the  Baron. 

Rosalie  spent  the  winter  of  1834-35  torn  by  secret  tumult; 
but  in  the  spring,  in  the  month  of  April,  when  she  reached 
the  age  of  nineteen,  she  sometimes  thought  that  it  would  be 
a  fine  thing  to  triumph  over  a  Duchesse  d'Argaiolo.  In  silence 
and  solitude  the  prospect  of  this  struggle  had  fanned  her  pas- 
sion and  her  evil  thoughts.  She  encouraged  her  romantic 
daring  by  making  plan  after  plan.  Although  such  characters 
are  an  exception,  there  are,  unfortunately,  too  many  Rosalies 
in  the  world,  and  this  story  contains  a  moral  which  ought  to 
serve  them  as  a  warning. 

In  the  course  of  this  winter  Albert  Savaron  had  quietly  made 
considerable  progress  in  Besancon.  Most  confident  of  suc- 
cess, he    now   impatiently  awaited    the   dissolution   of  the 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  367 

Chamber.  Among  the  men  of  the  moderate  party  he  had 
won  the  suffrages  of  one  of  the  makers  of  Besancon,  a  rich 
contractor,  who  had  very  wide  influence. 

Wherever  they  settled  the  Romans  took  immense  pains, 
and  spent  enormous  sums  to  have  an  unlimited  supply  of  good 
water  in  every  town  of  their  empire.  At  Bensacon  they 
drank  the  water  from  Arcier,  a  hill  at  some  considerable  dis- 
tance from  Besancon.  The  town  stands  in  a  horseshoe  circum- 
scribed by  the  river  Doubs.  Thus,  to  restore  an  aqueduct  in 
order  to  drink  the  same  water  that  the  Romans  drank,  in  a 
town  watered  by  the  Doubs,  is  one  of  those  absurdities  which 
only  succeed  in  a  country  place  where  the  most  exemplary 
gravity  prevails.  If  this  whim  could  be  brought  home  to  the 
hearts  of  the  citizens,  it  would  lead  to  considerable  outlay,  and 
this  expenditure  would  benefit  the  influential  contractor. 

Albert  Savaron  de  Savarus  opined  that  the  water  of  the 
river  was  good  for  nothing  but  to  flow  under  a  suspension 
bridge,  and  that  the  only  drinkable  water  was  that  from- 
Arcier.  Articles  were  printed  in  the  Review  which  merely 
expressed  the  views  of  the  commercial  interest  of  Besancon. 
The  nobility  and  the  citizens,  the  moderates  and  the  legiti- 
mists, the  government  party  and  the  opposition,  everybody, 'in 
short,  was  agreed  that  they  must  drink  the  same  water  as  the 
Romans,  and  boast  of  a  suspension  bridge.  The  question  of 
the  Arcier  water  was  the  order  of  the  day  at  Besancon.  At 
Besan§on — as  in  the  matter  of  the  two  railways  to  Versailles — 
as  for  every  standing  abuse — there  were  private  interests  un- 
confessed  which  gave  vital  force  to  this  idea.  The  reasonable 
folk  in  opposition  to  this  scheme,  who  were  indeed  but  few, 
were  regarded  as  old  women.  No  one  talked  of  anything  but 
of  Savaron's  two  projects.  And  thus,  after  eighteen  months 
of  underground  labor,  the  ambitious  lawyer  had  succeeded  in 
stirring  to  its  depths  the  most  stagnant  town  in  France,  the 
most  unyielding  to  foreign  influence,  in  finding  the  length  of 
its  foot,  to  use  a  vulgar  phrase,  and  exerting  a  preponderant 


3fl8  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

influence  without  stirring  from  his  own  room.  He  had 
solved  the  singular  problem  of  how  to  be  powerful  without 
being  popular. 

In  the  course  of  this  winter  he  won  seven  lawsuits  for  vari- 
ous priests  of  Besancon.  At  moments  he  could  breathe  freely 
at  the  thought  of  his  coming  triumph.  This  intense  desire, 
which  made  him  work  so  many  interests  and  devise  so  many 
springs,  absorbed  the  last  strength  of  his  terribly  overstrung 
soul.  His  disinterestedness  was  lauded,  and  he  took  his 
clients'  fees  without  comment.  But  this  disinterestedness  was, 
in  truth,  moral  usury ;  he  counted  on  a  reward  far  greater  to 
him  than  all  the  gold  in  the  world. 

In  the  month  of  October,  1834,  he  had  bought,  ostensibly 
to  serve  a  merchant  who  was  in  difficulties,  with  money  loaned 
him  by  Leopold  Hannequin,  a  house  which  gave  him  a  quali- 
fication for  election.  He  had  not  seemed  to  seek  or  desire 
this  advantageous  bargain. 

"You  are  really  a  remarkable  man,"  said  the  Abbe  de 
Grancey,  who,  of  course,  had  watched  and  understood  the 
lawyer.  The  vicar-general  had  come  to  introduce  to  him  a 
canon  who  needed  his  professional  advice.  "  You  are  a  priest 
who  has  taken  the  wrong  turning."  This  observation  struck 
Savaron. 

Rosalie,  on  her  part,  had  made  up  her  mind,  in  her  strong 
girl's  head,  to  get  Monsieur  de  Savaron  into  the  drawing-room 
and  acquainted  with  the  society  of  the  Hotel  de  Rupt.  So 
far  she  had  limited  her  desires  to  seeing  and  hearing  Albert. 
She  had  compounded,  so  to  speak,  and  a  composition  is  often 
no  more  than  a  truce. 

Les  Rouxey,  the  inherited  estate  of  the  Wattevilles,  was 
worth  just  ten  thousand  francs  a  year ;  but  in  other  hands  it 
would  have  yielded  a  great  deal  more.  The  Baron  in  his 
indifference — for  his  wife  was  to  have,  and  in  fact  had,  forty 
thousand  francs  a  year — left  the  management  of  Les  Rouxey  to 
a  sort  of  factotum,  an  old  servant  of  the  Wattevilles  named 


ALBER  T  SA  VAR  OAT.  369 

Modinier.  Nevertheless,  whenever  the  Baron  and  his  wife 
wished  to  go  out  of  the  town,  they  went  to  Les  Rouxey,  which  is 
very  picturesquely  situated.  The  chateau  and  the  park  were, 
in  fact,  created  by  the  famous  Watteville,  who  in  his  active 
old  age  was  passionately  attached  to  this  magnificent  spot. 

Between  two  precipitous  hills — little  peaks  with  bare  sum- 
mits known  as  the  great  and  the  little  Rouxey — in  the  heart 
of  a  ravine  where  the  torrents  from  the  heights,  with  the 
Dent  de  Vilard  at  their  head,  come  tumbling  to  join  the 
lovely  upper  waters  of  the  Doubs,  Watteville  had  a  huge  dam 
constructed,  leaving  two  cuttings  for  the  overflow.  Above 
this  dam  he  made  a  beautiful  lake,  and  below  it  two  cascades; 
and  these,  uniting  a  few  yards  below  the  falls,  formed  a 
lovely  little  river  to  irrigate  the  barren,  uncultivated  valley, 
hitherto  devastated  by  the  torrent.  This  lake,  this  valley, 
and  these  two  hills  he  enclosed  in  a  ring  fence,  and  built  him- 
self a  retreat  on  the  dam,  which  he  widened  to  two  acres  by 
accumulating  above  it  all  the  soil  which  had  to  be  removed  to 
make  a  channel  for  the  river  and  the  irrigation  canals. 

When  the  Baron  de  Watteville  thus  obtained  the  lake  above 
his  dam  he  was  owner  of  the  two  hills,  but  not  of  the  upper 
valley  thus  flooded,  through  which  there  had  been  at  all 
times  a  right-of-way  to  where  it  ends  in  a  horseshoe  under  the 
Dent  de  Vilard.  But  this  ferocious  old  man  was  so  widely 
dreaded,  that  so  long  as  he  lived  no  claim  was  urged  by  the 
inhabitants  of  Riceys,  the  little  village  on  the  farther  side  of 
the  Dent  de  Vilard.  When  the  Baron  died,  he  left  the  slopes 
of  the  two  Rouxey  hills  joined  by  a  strong  wall,  to  protect 
from  inundation  the  two  lateral  valleys  opening  into  the 
valley  of  Rouxey,  to  the  right  and  left  at  the  foot  of  the 
Dent  de  Vilard.  Thus  he  died  the  master  of  the  Dent  de 
Vilard. 

His  heirs  asserted  their  protectorate  of  the  village  of 
Riceys,  and  so  maintained  the  usurpation.  The  old  assassin, 
the  old  renegade,  the  old-Abb6  Watteville,  ended  his  career 
24 


370  ALBER  T  SA  VARON. 

by  planting  trees  and  making  a  fine  road  over  the  shoulder  of 
one  of  the  Rouxey  hills  to  join  the  high-road.  The  estate 
belonging  to  this  park  and  house  was  extensive,  but  badly 
cultivated ;  there  were  chalets  on  both  hills  and  neglected 
forests  of  timber.  It  was  all  wild  and  deserted,  left  to  the 
care  of  nature,  abandoned  to  chance  growths,  but  full  of  sub- 
lime and  unexpected  beauty.  You  may  now  imagine  Les 
Rouxey, 

It  is  unnecessary  to  complicate  this  story  by  relating  all  the 
prodigious  trouble  and  the  inventiveness  stamped  with  genius 
by  which  Rosalie  achieved  her  end  without  allowing  it  to  be 
suspected.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  it  was  in  obedience  to  her 
mother  that  she  left  Besancon  in  the  month  of  May,  1835,  in 
an  antique  traveling  carriage  drawn  by  a  pair  of  sturdy  hired 
horses,  and  accompanied  her  father  to  Les  Rouxey. 

To  a  young  girl  love  lurks  in  everything.  When  she  rose, 
the  morning  after  her  arrival,  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville 
saw  from  her  bedroom  window  the  fine  expanse  of  water, 
from  which  the  light  mists  rose  like  smoke,  and  were  caught 
in  the  firs  and  larches,  rolling  up  and  along  the  hills  till  they 
reached  the  heights,  and  she  gave  a  cry  of  admiration. 

"  They  loved  by  the  lakes  !  She  lives  by  a  lake  !  A  lake 
is  certainly  full  of  love  !  "  she  thought. 

A  lake  fed  by  snows  has  opalescent  colors  and  a  translucency 
that  make  it  one  huge  diamond  ;  but  when  it  is  shut  in  like 
that  of  Les  Rouxey,  between  two  granite  masses  covered  with 
pines,  when  silence  broods  over  it  like  that  of  the  Savannahs 
or  the  Steppes,  then  every  one  must  exclaim  as  Rosalie  did. 

"  We  owe  that,"  said  her  father,  "to  the  notorious  Watte- 
ville." 

"On  my  word,"  said  the  girl,  "he  did  his  best  to  earn 
forgiveness.  Let  us  go  in  a  boat  to  the  farther  end ;  it  will 
give  us  an  appetite  for  breakfast." 

The  Baron  called  two  gardener  lads  who  knew  how  to  row, 
and  took  with  him  his  prime  minister,  Modinier.     The  lake 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  371 

was  about  six  acres  in  breadth,  in  some  places  ten  or  twelve, 
and  four  hundred  in  length.  Rosalie  soon  found  herself  at 
the  upper  end  shut  in  by  the  Dent  de  Vilard,  the  Jungfrau  of 
that  little  Switzerland. 

"  Here  we  are,  Monsieur  le  Baron,"  said  Modinier,  signing 
to  the  gardeners  to  tie  up  the  boat;  "will  you  come  and 
look?" 

"  Look  at  what  ?  "  asked  Rosalie. 

"  Oh,  nothing  !  "  exclaimed  the  Baron.  "  But  you  are  a 
sensible  girl ;  we  have  some  little  secrets  between  us,  and  I 
may  tell  you  what  ruffles  my  mind.  Some  difficulties  have 
arisen  since  1830  between  the  village  authorities  of  Riceys 
and  me,  on  account  of  this  very  Dent  de  Vilard,  and  I  want 
to  settle  the  matter  without  your  mother  knowing  anything 
about  it,  for  she  is  stubborn  ;  she  is  capable  of  flinging  fire 
and  flames  broadcast,  particularly  if  she  should  hear  that  the 
mayor  of  Riceys,  a  Republican,  got  up  this  action  as  a  sop  to 
his  people." 

Rosalie  had  presence  of  mind  enough  to  disguise  her  delight, 
so  as  to  work  more  effectually  on  her  father. 

"  What  action  ?  "  said  she. 

"Mademoiselle,  the  people  of  Riceys,"  said  Modinier, 
"  have  long  enjoyed  the  right  of  grazing  and  cutting  fodder 
on  their  side  of  the  Dent  de  Vilard.  Now  Monsieur  Chan- 
tonnit,  the  mayor  since  1830,  declares  that  the  whole  Dent 
belongs  to  his  district,  and  maintains  that  a  hundred  years 
ago,  or  more,  there  was  a  way  through  our  grounds.  You  un- 
derstand that  in  that  case  we  should  no  longer  have  them  to 
ourselves.  Then  this  barbarian  would  end  by  saying,  what 
the  old  men  in  the  village  say,  that  the  ground  occupied  by 
the  lake  was  appropriated  by  the  Abbe  de  Watteville.  That 
would  be  the  end  of  Les  Rouxey ;  what  next?  " 

"Indeed,  my  child,  between  ourselves,  it  is  the  truth," 
said  Monsieur  de  Watteville  simply.  "  The  land  is  an  usurpa- 
tion, with  no  title-deed  but  lapse  of  time.     And,  therefore,  to 


372  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

avoid  all  worry,  I  should  wish  to  come  to  a  friendly  under- 
standing as  to  my  border-line  on  this  side  of  the  Dent  de 
Vilard,  and  I  will  then  raise  a  wall." 

i(  If  you  give  way  to  the  municipality,  it  will  swallow  you 
up.     You  ought  to  have  threatened  Riceys." 

"That  is  just  what  I  told  the  master  last  evening,"  said 
Modinier.  "But  in  confirmation  of  that  view  I  proposed 
that  he  should  come  to  see  whether,  on  this  side  of  the  Dent 
or  on  the  other,  there  may  not  be,  high  or  low,  some  traces 
of  an  enclosure." 

For  a  century  the  Dent  de  Vilard  had  been  used  by  both 
parties  without  coming  to  extremities ;  it  stood  as  a  sort  of 
party  wall  between  the  communes  of  Riceys  and  Les  Rouxey, 
yielding  little  profit.  Indeed,  the  object  in  dispute,  being 
covered  with  snow  for  six  months  in  the  year,  was  of  a  nature 
to  cool  their  ardor.  Thus  it  required  all  the  hot  blast  by 
which  the  revolution  of  1830  inflamed  the  advocates  of  the 
people  to  stir  up  this  matter,  by  which  Monsieur  Chantonnit, 
the  mayor  of  Riceys,  hoped  to  give  a  dramatic  turn  to  his 
career  on  the  peaceful  frontier  of  Switzerland,  and  to  immor- 
talize his  term  of  office.  Chantonnit,  as  his  name  shows,  was 
a  native  of  Neufchatel. 

"  My  dear  father,"  said  Rosalie,  as  they  got  into  the  boat 
again,  "I  agree  with  Modinier.  If  you  wish  to  secure  the 
joint  possession  of  the  Dent  de  Vilard,  you  must  act  with 
decision  and  get  a  legal  opinion  which  will  protect  you  against 
this  enterprising  Chantonnit.  Why  should  you  be  afraid? 
Get  the  famous  lawyer  Savaron — engage  him  at  once,  lest 
Chantonnit  should  place  the  interests  of  the  village  in  his 
hands.  The  man  who  won  the  case  for  the  chapter  against 
the  town  can  certainly  win  that  of  Watteville  versus  Riceys  ! 
Besides,"  she  added,  "  Les  Rouxey  will  some  day  be  mine — 
not  for  a  long  time  yet,  I  trust.  Well,  then,  do  not  leave  me 
with  a  lawsuit  on  my  hands.  I  like  this  place  ;  I  shall  often  live 
here,  and  add  to  it  as  much  as  possible.    On  those  banks,"  an4 


ALBER  T  SAVAR  ON.  378 

she  pointed  to  the  feet  of  the  two  hills,  "  I  shall  cut  flower- 
beds and  make  the  loveliest  English  gardens.  Let  us  go  to 
Besancon  and  bring  back  with  us  the  Abbe  de  Grancey,  Mon- 
sieur Savaron,  and  my  mother,  if  she  cares  to  come.  You  can 
then  make  up  your  mind  ;  but  in  your  place  I  should  have 
done  so  already.  Your  name  is  Watteville,  and  you  are  afraid 
of  a  fight !  If  you  should  lose  your  case — well,  I  will  never 
reproach  you  by  a  word  !  ' ' 

"  Oh,  if  that  is  the  way  you  take  it,"  said  the  Baron,  "  I 
am  quite  ready  ;  I  will  see  the  lawyer." 

"  Besides,  a  lawsuit  is  really  great  fun.  It  brings  some 
interest  into  life,  with  coming  and  going  and  raging  over  it. 
You  will  have  a  great  deal  to  do  before  you  can  get  hold  of 
the  judges.  We  did  not  see  the  Abbe  de  Grancey  for  three 
weeks,  he  was  so  busy  !  " 

"  But  the  very  existence  of  the  chapter  was  involved,"  said 
Monsieur  de  Watteville  ;  "  and  then  the  archbishop's  pride,  his 
conscience,  everything  that  makes  up  the  life  of  the  priesthood, 
were  at  stake.  That  Savaron  does  not  know  what  he  did  for 
the  chapter  !     He  saved  it  !  " 

"  Listen  to  me,"  said  his  daughter  in  his  ear,  "if  you 
secure  Monsieur  de  Savaron,  you  will  gain  your  suit,  won't 
you?  Well,  then,  let  me  advise  you.  You  cannot  get  at 
Monsieur  Savaron  excepting  through  Monsieur  de  Grancey. 
Take  my  word  for  it,  and  let  us  together  talk  to  the  dear  abb£, 
without  my  mother's  presence  at  the  interview,  for  I  know  a 
way  of  persuading  him  to  bring  the  lawyer  to  us." 

"  It  will  be  very  difficult  to  avoid  mentioning  it  to  your 
mother!  " 

"  The  Abbe  de  Grancey  will  settle  that  afterwards.  But 
just  make  up  your  mind  to  promise  your  vote  to  Monsieur 
Savaron  at  the  next  election,  and  you  will  see  !  " 

"Go  to  the  election  !  take  the  oath?"  cried  the  Baron  de 
Watteville. 

"What  then?"  said  she. 

Z 


374  ALBERT  S AVAR  ON. 

"  And  what  will  your  mother  say?  " 

"  She  may  even  desire  you  to  do  it,"  replied  Rosalie, 
knowing  as  she  did  from  Albert's  letter  to  Leopold  how  deeply 
the  vicar-general  had  pledged  himself. 

Four  days  after,  the  Abbe  de  Grancey  called  very  early  one 
morning  on  Albert  de  Savaron,  having  announced  his  visit  the 
day  before.  The  old  priest  had  come  to  win  over  the  great 
lawyer  to  the  house  of  the  Wattevilles,  a  proceeding  which 
shows  how  much  tact  and  subtlety  Rosalie  must  have  employed 
in  an  underhand  way. 

"What  can  I  do  for  you,  Monsieur  le  Vicaire-General?  " 
asked  Savaron. 

The  abbe,  who  told  his  story  with  admirable  frankness,  was 
coldly  heard  by  Albert. 

"  Monsieur  l'Abbe,"  said  he,  "  it  is  out  of  the  question  that 
I  should  defend  the  interests  of  the  Wattevilles,  and  you  shall 
understand  why.  My  part  in  this  town  is  to  remain  perfectly 
neutral.  I  will  display  no  colors;  I  must  remain  a  mystery 
till  the  eve  of  my  election.  Now,  to  plead  for  the  Wattevilles 
would  mean  nothing  in  Paris,  but  here  !  Here,  where  every- 
thing is  discussed,  I  should  be  supposed  by  every  one  to  be  an 
ally  of  your  Faubourg  Saint-Germain." 

"  What !  do  you  suppose  that  you  can  remain  unknown  on 
the  day  of  the  election,  when  the  candidates  must  oppose  each 
other  ?  It  must  then  become  known  that  your  name  is  Savaron 
de  Savarus,  that  you  have  held  the  appointment  of  master  of 
appeals,  that  you  supported  the  Restoration  !  " 

"  On  the  day  of  the  election,"  said  Savaron,  "  I  will  be  all 
I  am  expected  to  be ;  and  I  intend  to  speak  at  the  preliminary 
meetings." 

"  If  you  have  the  support  of  Monsieur  de  Watteville  and 
his  party,  you  will  get  a  hundred  votes  in  a  mass,  and  far 
more  to  be  trusted  than  those  on  which  you  rely.  It  is  always 
possible  to  produce  division  of  interests  j  convictions  are  in- 
separable," 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  375 

"The  deuce  is  in  it  !  "  said  Savaron.  "I  am  attached  to 
you,  and  I  could  do  a  great  deal  for  you,  father !  Perhaps  we 
may  compound  with  the  devil.  Whatever  Monsieur  de  Watte- 
ville's  business  may  be,  by  engaging  Girardet,  and  prompting 
him,  it  will  be  possible  to  drag  the  proceedings  out  till  the 
elections  are  over.  I  will  not  undertake  to  plead  till  the  day 
after  I  am  returned." 

"  Do  this  one  thing,"  said  the  abbe.  "  Come  to  the  Hotel 
de  Rupt  :  there  is  a  young  person  of  nineteen  there  who,  one 
of  these  days,  will  have  a  hundred  thousand  francs  a  year, 
and  you  can  seem  to  be  paying  your  court  to  her " 

"  Ah  !   the  young  lady  I  sometimes  see  in  the  kiosk?" 

"Yes,  Mademoiselle  Rosalie,"  replied  the  Abbe  de  Gran- 
cey.  "  You  are  ambitious.  If  she  takes  a  fancy  to  you, 
you  may  be  everything  an  ambitious  man  can  wish — who 
knows?  A  minister  perhaps.  A  man  can  always  be  a  min- 
ister who  adds  a  hundred  thousand  francs  a  year  to  your 
amazing  talents." 

"  Monsieur  l'Abbe,  if  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  had  three 
times  her  fortune,  and  adored  me  into  the  bargain,  it  would 
be  impossible  that  I  should  marry  her " 

"  You  are  married  ?  "  exclaimed  the  abbe. 

"  Not  in  church  nor  before  the  mayor,  but  morally  speak- 
ing," said  Savaron. 

"  That  is  even  worse  when  a  man  cares  about  it  as  you  seem 
to  care,"  replied  the  abbe.  "Some  things  that  are  done 
can  be  undone.  Do  not  stake  your  fortune  and  your  pros- 
pects on  a  woman's  liking,  any  more  than  a  wise  man  counts 
on  a  dead  man's  shoes  before  starting  on  his  way." 

"  Let  us  say  no  more  about  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville," 
said  Albert  gravely,  "and  agree  as  to  the  facts.  At  your 
desire — for  I  have  a  regard  and  respect  for  you— I  will  appear 
for  Monsieur  de  Watteville,  but  after  the  elections.  Until 
then  Girardet  must  conduct  the  case  under  my  instructions. 
That  is  the  utmost  I  can  do." 


376  ALBERT  S AVAR  ON. 

"But  there  are  questions  involved  which  can  only  be  set- 
tled after  careful  inspection  of  the  localities,"  said  the  vicar- 
general. 

"  Girardet  can  go,"  said  Savaron.  "  I  cannot  allow  myself, 
in  the  face  of  a  town  I  know  so  well,  to  take  any  step  which 
might  compromise  the  supreme  interests  that  lie  beyond  my 
election." 

The  abbe  left  Savaron  after  giving  him  a  keen  look,  in 
which  he  seemed  to  be  laughing  at  the  young  athlete's  uncom- 
promising politics,  while  admiring  his  firmness. 

"Ah!  I  would  have  dragged  my  father  into  a  lawsuit — I 
would  have  done  anything  to  get  him  here  !  "  cried  Rosalie 
to  herself,  standing  in  the  kiosk  and  looking  at  the  lawyer 
in  his  room,  the  day  after  Albert's  interview  with  the  abbe, 
who  had  reported  the  result  to  her  father.  "  I  would  have 
committed  any  mortal  sin,  and  you  will  not  enter  the  Watte- 
villes'  drawing-room  ;  I  may  not  hear  your  fine  voice  !  You 
make  conditions  when  your  help  is  required  by  the  Watte- 
villes  and  the  Rupts  !  Well,  God  knows,  I  meant  to  be  con- 
tent with  these  small  joys;  with  seeing  you,  hearing  you 
speak,  going  with  you  to  Les  Rouxey,  that  your  presence  might 
to  me  make  the  place  sacred.  That  was  all  I  asked.  But 
now — new  I  mean  to  be  your  wife.  Yes,  yes ;  look  at  her 
portrait,  at  her  drawing-room,  her  bedroom,  at  the  four  sides 
of  her  villa,  the  points  of  view  from  her  gardens.  You  expect 
her  statue  ?  I  will  make  her  marble  herself  towards  you  ! 
After  all,  the  woman  does  not  love.  Art,  science,  books, 
singing,  music,  have  absorbed  half  her  senses  and  her  intelli- 
gence. She  is  old,  too;  she  is  past  thirty;  my  Albert  will 
not  be  happy  !  " 

"  What  is  the  matter  that  you  stay  here,  Rosalie?  "  asked 
her  mother,  interrupting  her  reflections.  "  Monsieur  de 
Soulas  is  in  the  drawing-room,  and  he  observed  your  attitude, 
which  certainly  betrays  more  thoughtfulness  than  is  due  at 
your  age." 


ALBER  T  SA  VAR  ON.  377 

"Then  is  Monsieur  de  Soulas  a  foe  to  thought?"  asked 
Rosalie. 

"Then  you  were  thinking?  "  said  Madame  de  Watteville. 

"Why,  yes,  mamma." 

"  Why,  no  I  you  were  not  thinking.  You  were  staring  at 
that  lawyer's  window  with  an  attention  that  is  neither  becom- 
ing nor  decent,  and  which  Monsieur  de  Soulas,  of  all  men, 
ought  never  to  have  observed." 

"Why?"  said  Rosalie. 

"It  is  time,"  said  the  Baroness,  "that  you  should  know 
what  our  intentions  are.  Am6d6e  likes  you,  and  you  will  not 
be  unhappy  as  Comtesse  de  Soulas." 

Rosalie,  as  white  as  a  lily,  made  no  reply,  so  completely 
was  she  stupefied  by  contending  feelings.  And  yet,  in  the 
presence  of  the  man  she  had  this  instant  begun  to  hate  vehe- 
mently, she  forced  the  kind  of  smile  which  a  ballet-dancer 
puts  on  for  the  public.  Nay,  she  could  even  laugh  ;  she  had 
the  strength  to  conceal  her  rage,  which  presently  subsided, 
for  she  was  determined  to  make  use  of  this  fat  simpleton  to 
further  her  designs, 

"Monsieur  Am6dee,"  said  she,  at  a  moment  when  her 
mother  was  walking  ahead  of  them  in  the  garden,  affecting  to 
leave  the  young  people  together,  "  were  you  not  aware  that 
Monsieur  Albert  Savaron  de  Sa varus  is  a  Legitimist  ?  " 

"A  Legitimist?" 

"Until  1830  he  was  master  of  appeals  to  the  Council  of 
State,  attached  to  the  Supreme  Ministerial  Council,  and  in 
favor  with  the  Dauphin  and  Dauphiness.  It  would  be  very 
good  of  you  to  say  nothing  against  him,  but  it  would  be 
better  still  if  you  would  attend  the  election  this  year,  carry 
the  day,  and  hinder  that  poor  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt  from 
representing  the  town  of  Besan^on." 

"What  sudden  interest  have  you  in  this  Savaron  ?  " 

"  Monsieur  Albert  Savaron  de  Sa  varus,  the  natural  son  of 
the  Comte  de  Savarus — pray  keep  the  secret  of  my  indis- 


378  ALBER T  SA  VARON. 

cretion — if  he  is  returned  deputy,  will  be  our  advocate  in  the 
suit  about  Les  Rouxey.  Les  Rouxey,  my  father  tells  me,  will  be 
my  property;  I  intend  to  live  there,  it  is  a  lovely  place  !  I 
should  be  broken-hearted  at  seeing  that  fine  piece  of  the  great 
de  Watteville's  work  destroyed." 

"The  devil!"  thought  Amedee,  as  he  left  the  house. 
"  The  heiress  is  not  such  a  fool  as  her  mother  thinks  her." 

Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt  is  a  Royalist,  of  the  famous  221. 
Hence,  from  the  day  after  the  revolution  of  July,  he  always 
preached  the  salutary  doctrine  of  taking  the  oaths  and  resist- 
ing the  present  order  of  things,  after  the  pattern  of  the 
Tories  against  the  Whigs  in  England.  This  doctrine  was  not 
acceptable  to  the  Legitimists,  who,  in  their  defeat,  had  the 
wit  to  divide  in  their  opinions,  and  to  trust  to  the  force  of 
inertia,  and  to  Providence.  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt  was 
not  wholly  trusted  by  his  own  party,  but  seemed  to  the 
Moderates  the  best  man  to  choose  ;  they  preferred  the  triumph 
of  his  half-hearted  opinions  to  the  acclamation  of  a  Repub- 
lican who  should  combine  the  votes  of  the  enthusiasts  and 
the  patriots. 

Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt,  highly  respected  in  Besancon, 
was  the  representative  of  an  old  parliamentary  family  ;  his 
fortune,  of  about  fifteen  thousand  francs  a  year,  was  not  an 
offense  to  anybody,  especially  as  he  had  a  son  and  three 
daughters.  With  such  a  family,  fifteen  thousand  francs  a  year 
are  a  mere  nothing.  Now  when,  under  these  circumstances, 
the  father  of  the  family  is  above  bribery,  it  would  be  hard  if 
the  electors  did  not  esteem  him.  Electors  wax  enthusiastic 
over  a  beau  ideal  of  parliamentary  virtue,  just  as  the  audience 
in  the  pit  do  at  the  representation  of  the  generous  sentiments 
they  so  little  practice. 

Madame  de  Chavoncourt,  at  this  time  a  woman  of  forty, 
was  one  of  the  beauties  of  Besancon.  While  the  Chambei 
was  sitting,  she  lived  meagrely  in  one  of  their  country  places 
to  recoup  herself  by  economy  for  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt' s 


-  ALBERT  SAVARON,  $79 

etfpefises  in  Paris,  In  the  winter  she  received  very  creditably 
once  a  week,  on  Tuesdays,  understanding  her  business  as  mis- 
tress of  the  house.  Young  Chavoncourt,  a  youth  of  two-and- 
twenty,  and  another  young  gentleman,  named  Monsieur  de 
Vauchelles,  no  richer  than  Amedee  and  his  school-friend, 
were  his  intimate  allies.  They  made  excursions  together  to 
Granvelle,  and  sometimes  went  out  shooting ;  they  were  so 
well-known  to  be  inseparable  that  they  were  invited  to  the 
country  together. 

Rosalie,  who  was  intimate  with  the  Chavoncourt  girls, 
knew  that  the  three  young  men  had  no  secrets  from  each 
other.  She  reflected  that  if  Monsieur  de  Soulas  should  repeat 
her  words,  it  would  be  to  his  two  companions.  Now,  Mon- 
sieur de  Vauchelles  had  his  matrimonial  plans,  as  Amedee  had 
his ;  he  wished  to  marry  Victoire,  the  eldest  of  the  Chavon- 
courts,  on  whom  an  old  aunt  was  to  settle  an  estate  worth 
seven  thousand  francs  a  year,  and  a  hundred  thousand  francs 
in  hard  cash,  when  the  contract  should  be  signed.  Victoire 
was  this  aunt's  god-daughter  and  favorite  niece.  Conse- 
quently, young  Chavoncourt  and  his  friend  Vauchelles  would 
be  sure  to  warn  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt  of  the  danger  he 
was  in  from  Albert's  candidature. 

But  this  did  not  satisfy  Rosalie.  She  sent  the  prefet  of  the 
department  a  letter  written  with  her  left  hand,  signed  "A 
friend  to  Louis  Philippe,"  in  which  she  informed  him  of  the 
secret  intentions  of  Monsieur  Albert  Savaron,  pointing  out 
the  serious  support  a  Royalist  orator  might  give  to  Berryer, 
and  revealing  to  him  the  deeply  artful  course  pursued  by  the 
lawyer  during  his  two  years'  residence  at  Besancon.  The 
prefet  was  a  capable  man,  a  personal  enemy  of  the  Royalist 
party,  devoted  by  conviction  to  the  government  of  July — in 
short,  one  of  those  men  of  whom,  in  the  Rue  de  Grenelle, 
the  Minister  of  the  Interior  could  say,  "  We  have  a  capital 
prefet  at  Besancon."  The  prefet  read  the  letter,  and,  in 
obedience  to  its  instructions,  he  burnt  it. 


380  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

Rosalie  aimed  at  preventing  Albert's  election,  so  as  to 
keep  him  five  years  longer  at  Besancon. 

At  that  time  an  election  was  a  fight  between  parties,  and  in 
order  to  win,  the  ministry  chose  its  ground  by  choosing  the 
moment  when  it  would  give  battle.  The  elections  were  there- 
fore not  to  take  place  for  three  months  yet.  When  a  man's 
whole  life  depends  on  an  election,  the  period  that  elapses 
between  the  issuing  of  the  writs  for  convening  the  electoral 
bodies  and  the  day  fixed  for  their  meetings  is  an  interval 
during  which  -ordinary  vitality  is  suspended.  Rosalie  fully 
understood  how  much  latitude  Albert's  absorbed  state  would 
leave  her  during  these  three  months.  By  promising  Mariette 
— as  she  afterwards  confessed — to  take  both  her  and  Jerome 
into  her  service,  she  induced  the  maid  to  bring  her  all  the 
letters  Albert  might  send  to  Italy,  and  those  addressed  to  him 
from  that  country.  And  all  the  time  she  was  pondering  these 
machinations,  the  extraordinary  girl  was  working  slippers  for 
her  father  with  the  most  innocent  air  in  the  world.  She  even 
made  a  greater  display  than  ever  of  candor  and  simplicity, 
quite  understanding  how  valuable  that  candor  and  innocence 
would  be  to  her  ends. 

"My  daughter  grows  quite  charming!"  said  Madame  de 
Watteville. 

Two  months  before  the  election  a  meeting  was  held  at  the 
house  of  Monsieur  Boucher  senior,  composed  of  the  contractor 
who  expected  to  get  the  work  for  the  acqueduct  for  the  Arcier 
waters ;  of  Monsieur  Boucher's  father-in-law ;  of  Monsieur 
Granet,  the  influential  man  for  whom  Savaron  had  done  a  ser- 
vice, and  who  was  to  nominate  him  as  a  candidate ;  of  Gir- 
ardet  the  lawyer;  of  the  printer  of  the  Eastern  Review ;  and 
of  the  president  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce.  In  fact,  the 
assembly  consisted  of  twenty-seven  persons  in  all,  men  who  in 
the  provinces  are  regarded  as  bigwigs.  Each  man  represented 
on  an  average  six  votes,  but  in  estimating  their  value  they  said 
ten,  for  men  always  begin  by  exaggerating  their  own  influ- 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  381 

ence.  Among  these  twenty-seven  was  one  who  was  wholly 
devoted  to  the  prefet,  one  false  brother  who  secretly  looked 
for  some  favor  from  the  ministry,  either  for  himself  or  for 
some  one  belonging  to  him. 

At  this  preliminary  meeting,  it  was  agreed  that  Savaron  the 
lawyer  should  be  named  as  candidate,  a  motion  received  with 
such  enthusiasm  as  no  one  looked  for  from  Besancon.  Albert, 
waiting  at  home  for  Alfred  Boucher  to  fetch  him,  was  chatting 
with  the  Abbe  de  Grancey,  who  was  interested  in  this  absorb- 
ing ambition.  Albert  had  appreciated  the  priest's  vast  politi- 
cal capacities;  and  the  priest,  touched  by  the  young  man's 
entreaties,  had  been  willing  to  become  his  guide  and  adviser 
in  this  culminating  struggle.  The  chapter  did  not  love  Mon- 
sieur de  Chavoncourt,  for  it  was  his  wife's  brother-in-law,  as 
president  of  the  Tribunal,  who  had  lost  the  famous  suit  for 
them  in  the  lower  court. 

"You  are  betrayed,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  the  shrewd  and 
worthy  abbe,  in  that  gentle,  calm  voice  which  old  priests 
acquire. 

"Betrayed  !  M  cried  the  lawyer,  struck  to  the  heart. 

"By  whom  I  know  not  at  all,"  the  priest  replied.  "But 
at  the  prefecture  your  plans  are  known,  and  your  hand  read 
like  a  book.  At  this  moment  I  have  no  advice  to  give  you. 
Such  affairs  need  consideration.  As  for  this  evening,  take 
the  bull  by  the  horns,  anticipate  the  blow.  Tell  them  all 
your  previous  life,  and  thus  you  will  mitigate  the  effect  of  the 
discovery  on  the  good  folks  of  Besangon." 

"  Oh,  I  was  prepared  for  it,"  said  Albert  in  a  broken  voice. 

"You  would  not  benefit  by  my  advice;  you  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  making  an  impression  at  the  Hotel  de  Rupt ;  you 
do  not  know  the  advantage  you  would  have  gained " 

"What?" 

"  The  unanimous  support  of  the  Royalists,  an  immediate 
readiness  to  go  to  the  election — in  short,  above  a  hundred 
votes.     Adding  to  these  what,  among  ourselves,  we  call  the 


382  ALBEK  T  SAVARON. 

ecclesiastical  vote,  though  you  were  not  yet  nominated,  you 
were  master  of  the  votes  by  ballot.  Under  such  circumstances, 
a  man  may  temporize,  may  make  his  way " 

Alfred  Boucher  when  he  came  in,  full  of  enthusiasm,  to 
announce  the  decision  of  the  preliminary  meeting,  found  the 
vicar-general  and  the  lawyer  cold,  calm,  and  grave. 

"Good-night,  Monsieur  1' Abbe,"  said  Albert.  "We  will 
talk  of  your  business  at  greater  length  when  the  elections  are 
over." 

And  he  took  Alfred's  arm,  after  pressing  Monsieur  de 
Grancey's  hand  with  meaning.  The  priest  looked  at  the  am- 
bitious man,  whose  face  at  that  moment  wore  the  lofty  expres- 
sion which  a  general  may  have  when  he  hears  the  first  gun 
fired  for  a  battle.  He  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven,  and  left  the 
room,  saying  to  himself,  "  What  a  priest  he  would  make  !  " 

Eloquence  is  not  at  the  bar.  The  pleader  rarely  puts  forth 
the  real  powers  of  his  soul;  if  he  did,  he  would  die  of  it  in  a 
few  years.  Eloquence  is,  nowadays,  rarely  in  the  pulpit ;  but 
it  is  found  on  certain  occasions  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
when  an  ambitious  man  stakes  all  to  win  all,  or,  stung  by  a 
myriad  of  darts,  at  a  given  moment  bursts  into  speech.  But  it 
is  still  more  certainly  found  in  some  privileged  beings,  at  the 
inevitable  hour  when  their  claims  must  either  triumph  or  be 
wrecked,  and  when  they  are  forced  to  speak.  Thus  at  this 
meeting,  Albert  Savaron,  feeling  the  necessity  of  winning  him- 
self some  supporters,  displayed  all  the  faculties  of  his  soul  and 
the  resources  of  his  intellect.  He  entered  the  room  well, 
without  awkwardness  or  arrogance,  without  weakness,  without 
cowardice,  quite  gravely,  anxl  was  not  dismayed  at  finding 
himself  among  twenty  or  thirty  men.  The  news  of  the  meet- 
ing and  of  its  determination  had  already  brought  a  few  docile 
sheep  to  follow  the  bell. 

Before  listening  to  Monsieur  Boucher,  who  was  about  to 
deluge  him  with  a  speech  announcing  the  decision  of  the 
Boucher  Committee,  Albert  begged  for  silence,  and,  as  he 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  383 

shook  hands  with  Monsieur  Boucher,  tried  to  warn  him,  by  a 
sign,  of  an  unexpected  danger. 

"  My  young  friend,  Alfred  Boucher,  has  just  announced  to 
me  the  honor  you  have  done  me.  But  before  that  decision  is 
irrevocable,"  said  the  lawyer,  "  I  think  that  I  ought  to  explain 
to  you  who  and  what  your  candidate  is,  so  as  to  leave  you  free 
to  take  back  your  word  if  my  declarations  should  disturb  your 
conscience  !  " 

This  exordium  was  followed  by  profound  silence.  Some 
of  the  men  thought  it  showed  a  noble  impulse. 

Albert  gave  a  sketch  of  his  previous  career,  telling  them  his 
real  name,  his  action  under  the  Restoration,  and  revealing  him- 
self as  a  new  man  since  his  arrival  atBesancon,  while  pledging 
himself  for  the  future.  This  address  held  his  hearers  breath- 
less, it  was  said.  These  men,  all  with  different  interests,  were 
spellbound  by  the  brilliant  eloquence  that  flowed  at  boiling 
heat  from  the  heart  and  soul  of  this  ambitious  spirit.  Admira- 
tion silenced  reflection.  Only  one  thing  was  clear — the  thing 
which  Albert  wished  to  get  into  their  heads — 

Was  it  not  far  better  for  the  town  to  have  one  of  those  men 
who  are  born  to  govern  society  at  large  than  a  mere  voting- 
machine?  A  statesman  carries  power  with  him.  A  common- 
place deputy,  however  incorruptible,  is  but  a  conscience. 
What  a  glory  for  Provence  to  have  found  a  Mirabeau,  to 
return  the  only  statesman  since  1830  that  the  revolution  of 
July  had  produced ! 

Under  the  pressure  of  this  eloquence,  all  the  audience 
believed  it  great  enough  to  become  a  splendid  political  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  their  representative.  They  all  saw  in 
Albert  Savaron,  Savarus  the  great  Minister.  And,  reading  the 
secret  calculations  of  his  constituents,  the  clever  candidate 
gave  them  to  understand  that  they  would  be  the  first  to  enjoy 
the  right  of  profiting  by  his  influence. 

This  confession  of  faith,  this  ambitious  programme,  this 
retrospect  of  his  life  and  character  was,  according  to  the  only 


384  ALBERT  S  AVAR  ON. 

man  present  who  was  capable  of  judging  of  Savaron  (he  has 
since  become  one  of  the  leading  men  of  Besancon),  a  master- 
piece of  skill  and  of  feeling,  of  fervor,  interest,  and  fascina- 
tion. This  whirlwind  carried  away  the  electors.  Never  had 
any  man  had  such  a  triumph.  But,  unfortunately,  speech, 
a  weapon  only  for  close  warfare,  has  only  an  immediate  effect. 
Reflection  kills  the  word  when  the  word  ceases  to  overpower 
reflection.  If  the  votes  had  then  been  taken,  Albert's  name 
would  undoubtedly  have  come  out  of  the  ballot-box.  At  the 
moment,  he  was  conqueror.  But  he  must  conquer  every  day 
for  two  months. 

Albert  went  home  quivering.  The  townsfolk  had  applauded 
him,  and  he  had  achieved  the  great  point  of  silencing  before- 
hand the  malignant  talk  to  which  his  early  career  might  give 
rise.  The  commercial  interest  of  Besancon  had  unanimously 
nominated  the  lawyer,  Albert  Savaron  de  Savarus,  as  its 
candidate. 

Alfred  Boucher's  enthusiasm,  at  first  infectious,  presently 
became  blundering. 

The  prefet,  alarmed  by  this  success,  set  to  work  to  count 
the  ministerial  votes,  and  contrived  to  have  a  secret  interview 
with  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt,  so  as  to  effect  a  coalition  in 
their  common  interests.  Every  day,  without  Albert  being 
able  to  discover  how,  the  voters  in  the  Boucher  Committee 
diminished  in  number. 

Nothing  could  resist  the  slow  grinding  of  the  prefecture. 
Three  or  four  clever  men  would  say  to  Albert's  clients,  "  Will 
the  deputy  defend  you  and  win  your  lawsuits?  Will  he  give 
you  advice,  draw  up  your  contracts,  arrange  your  compromises? 
He  will  be  your  slave  for  five  years  longer,  if,  instead  of 
returning  him  to  the  Chamber,  you  only  hold  out  the  hope 
of  his  going  there  five  years  hence." 

This  calculation  did  Savaron  all  the  more  mischief,  because 
the  wives  of  some  of  the  merchants  had  already  made  it. 
The  parties  interested  in  the  matter  of  the  bridge  and  that  of 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  386 

the  water  from  Arcier  could  not  hold  out  against  a  talking-to 
from  a  clever  ministerialist,  who  proved  to  them  that  their 
safety  lay  at  the  prefecture,  and  not  in  the  hands  of  an  ambi- 
tious man.  Each  day  was  a  check  for  Savaron,  though  each 
day  the  battle  was  led  by  him  and  fought  by  his  lieutenants — 
a  battle  of  words,  speeches,  and  proceedings.  He  dared  not 
go  to  the  vicar-general,  and  the  vicar-general  never  showed 
himself.  Albert  rose  and  went  to  bed  in  a  fever,  his  brain 
on  fire. 

At  last  the  day  dawned  of  the  first  struggle,  practically  the 
show  of  hands ;  the  votes  are  counted,  the  candidates  estimate 
their  chances,  and  clever  men  can  prophesy  their  failure  or 
success.  It  is  a  decent  hustings,  without  the  mob,  but  for- 
midable ;  agitation,  though  it  is  not  allowed  any  physical 
display,  as  it  is  in  England,  is  not  the  less  profound.  The 
English  fight  these  battles  with  their  fists,  the  French  with 
hard  words.  Our  neighbors  have  a  scrimmage,  the  French 
try  their  fate  by  cold  combinations  calmly  worked  out.  This 
particular  political  business  is  carried  out  in  opposition  to  the 
character  of  the  two  nations. 

The  Radical  party  named  their  candidate  ;  Monsieur  de 
Chavoncourt  came  forward  ;  then  Albert  appeared,  and  was 
accused  by  the  Chavoncourt  Committee  and  the  Radicals  of 
being  an  uncompromising  man  of  the  Right,  a  second  Berryer. 
The  ministry  had  their  candidate,  a  stalking-horse,  useful 
only  to  receive  the  purely  ministerial  votes.  The  votes,  thus 
divided,  gave  no  result.  The  Republican  candidate  had 
twenty,  the  Ministry  got  fifty,  Albert  had  seventy,  Monsieur 
de  Chavoncourt  obtained  sixty-seven.  But  the  prefet's  party 
had  perfidiously  made  thirty  of  its  most  devoted  adherents 
vote  for  Albert,  so  as  to  deceive  the  enemy.  The  votes  for 
Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt,  added  to  the  eighty  votes — the 
real  number — at  the  disposal  of  the  prefecture  would  carry 
the  election,  if  only  the  prefet  could  succeed  in  gaining  over 
a  few  of  the  Radicals.  A  hundred  and  sixty  votes  were  not 
25 


386  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

recorded:  those  of  Monsieur  de  Grancey's  following  and  the 
Legitimists. 

The  show  of  hands  at  an  election,  like  a  dress  rehearsal  at 
a  theatre,  is  the  most  deceptive  thing  in  the  world.  Albert 
Savaron  came  home,  putting  a  brave  face  on  the  matter,  but 
half-dead.  He  had  had  the  wit,  the  genius,  or  the  good-luck 
to  gain,  within  the  last  fortnight,  two  staunch  supporters — 
Girardet's  father-in-law  and  a  very  shrewd  old  merchant  to 
whom  Monsieur  de  Grancey  had  sent  him.  These  two  worthy 
men,  his  self-appointed  spies,  affected  to  be  Albert's  most 
ardent  opponents  in  the  hostile  camp.  Towards  the  end  of 
the  show  of  hands  they  informed  Savaron,  through  the 
medium  of  Monsieur  Boucher,  that  thirty  voters,  unknown, 
were  secretly  working  against  him  in  his  party,  playing  the 
same  sharp  trick  that  they  were  playing  for  his  benefit  on  the 
other  side. 

A  criminal  marching  to  execution  could  not  suffer  as 
Albert  suffered  as  he  went  home  from  the  hall  where  his  fate 
was  at  stake.  The  despairing  lover  could  endure  no  compan- 
ionship. He  walked  through  the  streets  alone,  between  eleven 
o'clock  and  midnight.  At  one  in  the  morning,  Albert,  to 
whom  sleep  had  been  unknown  for  the  past  three  days,  was 
sitting  in  his  library  in  a  deep  armchair,  his  face  as  pale  as  if 
he  were  dying,  his  hands  hanging  limp,  in  a  forlorn  attitude 
worthy  of  the  Magdalen.  Tears  hung  on  his  long  lashes, 
tears  that  dim  the  eyes,  but  do  not  fall ;  fierce  thought  drinks 
them  up,  the  fire  of  the  soul  consumes  them.  Alone,  he  might 
weep.  And  then,  under  the  kiosk,  he  saw  a  white  figure, 
which  reminded  him  of  Francesca. 

"  And  for  three  months  I  have  had  no  letter  from  her  ! 
What  has  become  of  her  ?  I  have  not  written  for  two  months, 
but  I  warned  her.  Is  she  ill  ?  Oh  my  love  !  My  life!  Will 
you  ever  know  what  I  have  gone  through  ?  What  a  wretched 
constitution  is  mine  !  Have  I  an  aneurism?"  he  asked  him- 
self, feeling  his  heart  beat  so  violently  that  its  pulses  seemed 


SHE   WAS  ONE  OF  THOSE   WOMEN   WHO  ARE  BORN  TO  REIGN  V 


ALBER  T  SAVAR  ON.  387 

audible  in  the  silence  like  little  grains  of  sand  dropping  on  a 
big  drum, 

At  this  moment  three  distinct  taps  sounded  on  his  door; 
Albert  hastened  to  open  it,  and  almost  fainted  with  joy  at 
seeing  the  vicar-general's  cheerful  and  triumphant  mien. 
Without  a  word,  he  threw  his  arms  round  the  Abbe  de  Grancey, 
held  him  fast,  and  clasped  him  closely,  letting  his  head  fall  on 
the  old  man's  shoulder.  He  was  a  child  again ;  he  cried  as 
he  had  cried  on  hearing  that  Francesca  Soderini  was  a  married 
woman.  He  betrayed  his  weakness  to  no  one  but  to  this 
priest,  on  whose  face  shone  the  light  of  hope.  The  priest  had 
been  sublime,  and  as  shrewd  as  he  was  sublime. 

"Forgive  me,  dear  abbe,  but  you  come  at  one  of  those 
moments  when  the  man  vanishes,  for  you  are  not  to  think  me 
vulgarly  ambitious." 

"  Oh  !  I  know,"  replied  the  abbe.  "  You  wrote  'Ambition 
for  love' s  sake!1  Ah  !  my  son,  it  was  love  in  despair  that 
made  me  a  priest  in  1786,  at  the  age  of  two-and-twenty.  In 
1788  I  was  in  charge  of  a  parish.  I  know  life.  I  have  refused 
three  bishoprics  already  ;  I  mean  to  die  at  Besancon." 

"  Come  and  see  her  !  "  cried  Savaron,  seizing  a  candle,  and 
leading  the  abbe  into  the  handsome  room  where  hung  the 
portrait  of  the  Duchess  d'Argaiolo,  which  he  lighted  up. 

"  She  is  one  of  those  women  who  are  born  to  reign  !  "  said 
the  vicar-general,  understanding  how  great  an  affection  Albert 
showed  him  by  this  mark  of  confidence.  "  But  there  is  pride 
on  that  brow;  it  is  implacable  ;  she  would  never  forgive  an 
insult  !  It  is  the  Archangel  Michael,  the  angel  of  execution, 
the  inexorable  angel.  '  All  or  nothing  '  is  the  motto  of  this 
type  of  angel.  There  is  something  divinely  pitiless  in  that 
head." 

"  You  have  guessed  well,"  cried  Savaron.  "  But,  my  dear 
abbe,  for  more  than  twelve  years  now  she  has  reigned  over 
my  life,  and  I  have  not  a  single  thought  for  which  to  blame 
myself " 


388  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

"  Ah !  if  you  could  only  say  the  same  of  God  !  "  said  the 
priest  with  simplicity.  "  Now,  to  talk  of  your  affairs.  For 
ten  days  I  have  been  at  work  for  you.  If  you  are  a  real  poli- 
tician, this  time  you  will  follow  my  advice.  You  would  not 
be  where  you  are  now  if  you  would  have  gone  to  the  Watte- 
villes  when  I  first  told  you.  But  you  must  go  there  to- 
morrow ;  I  will  take  you  in  the  evening.  The  Rouxey  estates 
are  in  danger ;  the  case  must  be  defended  within  three  days. 
The  election  will  not  be  over  in  three  days.  They  will  take 
good  care  not  to  appoint  examiners  the  first  day.  There 
will  be  several  voting  days,  and  you  will  be  elected  by 
ballot " 

"  How  can  that  be?  "  asked  Savaron. 

"  By  winning  the  Rouxey  lawsuit  you  will  gain  eighty 
Legitimist  votes ;  add  them  to  the  thirty  I  can  command,  and 
you  have  a  hundred  and  ten.  Then,  as  twenty  remain  to 
you  of  the  Boucher  Committee,  you  will  have  a  hundred  and 
thirty  in  all." 

"Well,"  said  Albert,  "we  must  get  seventy-five  more." 

"Yes,"  said  the  priest,  "since  all  the  rest  are  ministerial. 
But,  my  son,  you  have  two  hundred  votes,  and  the  prefecture 
no  more  than  a  hundred  and  eighty." 

"  I  have  two  hundred  votes  ?  "  said  Albert,  standing  stupid 
with  amazement,  after  starting  to  his  feet  as  if  shot  up  by  a 
spring. 

"You  have  those  of  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt,"  said  the  abb£. 

"How?"  said  Albert. 

"You  will  marry  Mademoiselle  Sidonie  de  Chavoncourt." 

"Never!  " 

"You  will  marry  Mademoiselle  Sidonie  de  Chavoncourt," 
the  priest  repeated  coldly. 

"But  you  see — she  is  inexorable,"  said  Albert,  pointing  to 
Francesca. 

"  You  will  marry  Mademoiselle  Sidonie  de  Chavoncourt," 
said  the  abbe  calmly  for  the  third  time. 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  38 J 

This  time  Albert  understood.  The  vicar-general  would  not 
be  implicated  in  the  scheme  which  at  last  smiled  on  the 
despairing  politician.  A  word  more  would  have  compromised 
the  priest's  dignity  and  honor. 

"  To-morrow  evening  at  the  Hotel  de  Rupt  you  will  meet 
Madame  de  Chavoncourt  and  her  second  daughter.  You  can 
thank  her  beforehand  for  what  she  is  going  to  do  for  you,  and 
tell  her  that  your  gratitude  is  unbounded,  that  you  are  hers 
body  and  soul,  that  henceforth  your  future  is  that  of  her 
family.  You  are  quite  disinterested,  for  you  have  so  much 
confidence  in  yourself  that  you  regard  the  nomination  as 
deputy  as  a  sufficient  fortune. 

"  You  will  have  a  struggle  with  Madame  de  Chavoncourt; 
she  will  want  you  to  pledge  your  word.  All  your  future  life, 
my  son,  lies  in  that  evening.  But,  understand  clearly,  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  am  answerable  only  for  the  Legitimist 
voters ;  I  have  secured  Madame  de  Watteville,  and  that  means 
all  the  aristocracy  of  Besancon.  Amedee  de  Soulas  and  Vau- 
chelles,  who  will  both  vote  for  you,  have  won  over  the  young 
men ;  Madame  de  Watteville  will  get  the  old  ones.  As  to 
my  electors,  they  are  infallible." 

"And  who  on  earth  has  gained  over  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court?" asked  Savaron. 

"  Ask  me  no  questions,"  replied  the  abbe.  "  Monsieur  de 
Chavoncourt,  who  has  three  daughters  to  marry,  is  not  capable 
of  increasing  his  wealth.  Though  Vauchelles  marries  the 
eldest  without  anything  from  her  father,  because  her  old  aunt 
is  to  settle  something  on  her,  what  is  to  become  of  the  two 
others?  Sidonie  is  sixteen,  and  your  ambition  is  as  good  as 
a  gold  mine.  Some  one  has  told  Madame  de  Chavoncourt 
that  she  will  do  better  by  getting  her  daughter  married  than 
by  sending  her  husband  to  waste  his  money  in  Paris.  That 
some  one  manages  Madame  de  Chavoncourt,  and  Madame  de 
Chavoncourt  manages  her  husband." 

"  That  is  enough,  my  dear  abbe.     I   understand.     When 


390  ALBER  T  SA  VAR  ON. 

once  I  am  returned  as  deputy,  I  have  somebody's  fortune  to 
make,  and  by  making  it  large  enough  I  shall  be  released  from 
my  promise.  In  me  you  have  a  son,  a  man  who  will  owe  his 
happiness  to  you.  Great  heavens  !  what  have  I  done  to 
deserve  so  true  a  friend  ?" 

"You  won  a  triumph  for  the  chapter,"  said  the  vicar- 
general,  smiling.  "  Now,  as  to  all  this,  be  as  secret  as  the 
tomb.  We  are  nothing,  we  have  done  nothing.  If  we  were 
known  to  have  meddled  in  election  matters,  we  should  be 
eaten  up  alive  by  the  Puritans  of  the  Left — who  do  worse — 
and  blamed  by  some  of  our  own  party,  who  want  everything. 
Madame  de  Chavoncourt  has  no  suspicion  of  my  share  in  all 
this.  I  have  confided  in  no  one  but  Madame  de  Watteville, 
whom  we  may  trust  as  we  trust  ourselves." 

"I  will  bring  the  Duchess  to  you  to  be  blessed  !  "  cried 
Savaron. 

After  seeing  out  the  old  priest,  Albert  went  to  bed  in  the 
swaddling-clothes  of  power. 

Next  evening,  as  may  well  be  supposed,  by  nine  o'clock 
Madame  la  Baronne  de  Watteville's  rooms  were  crowded  by  the 
aristocracy  of  Besancon  in  convocation  extraordinary.  They 
were  discussing  the  exceptional  step  of  going  to  the  poll,  to 
oblige  the  daughter  of  the  de  Rupts.  It  was  known  that  the 
former  master  of  appeals,  the  secretary  of  one  of  the  most 
faithful  ministers  under  the  elder  branch,  was  to  be  presented 
that  evening.  Madame  de  Chavoncourt  was  there  with  her 
second  daughter  Sidonie,  exquisitely  dressed,  while  her  elder 
sister,  secure  of  her  lover,  had  not  indulged  in  any  of  the  arts 
of  the  toilet.  In  country  towns  these  little  things  are  re- 
marked. The  Abbe  de  Grancey's  fine  and  clever  head  was 
to  be  seen  moving  from  group  to  group,  listening  to  every- 
thing, seeming  to  be  apart  from  it  all,  but  uttering  those 
incisive  phrases  which  sum  up  a  question  and  direct  the  issue. 

"  If  the  elder  branch  were  to  return,"  said  he  to  an  old 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON.  391 

statesman  of  seventy,  "what  politicians  would  they  find?" 
"  Berryer,  alone  on  his  bench,  does  not  know  which  way  to 
turn  ;  if  he  had  sixty  votes,  he  would  often  scotch  the  wheels 
of  the  government  and  upset  ministries!"  "The  Due  de 
Fitz- James  is  to  be  nominated  at  Toulouse."  "You  will 
enable  Monsieur  de  Watte ville  to  win  his  lawsuit."  "  If  you 
vote  for  Monsieur  Savaron,  the  Republicans  will  vote  with  you 
rather  than  with  the  Moderates  !  "  etc.,  etc. 

At  nine  o'clock  Albert  had  not  arrived.  Madame  de 
Watteville  was  disposed  to  regard  such  delay  as  an  imperti- 
nence. 

"My  dear  Baroness,"  said  Madame  de  Chavoncourt,  "  do 
not  let  such  serious  issues  turn  on  such  a  trifle.  The  varnish 
on  his  boots  is  not  dry — or  a  consultation,  perhaps,  detains 
Monsieur  de  Savaron." 

Rosalie  shot  a  side  glance  at  Madame  de  Chavoncourt. 

"  She  is  very  lenient  to  Monsieur  de  Savaron,"  she  whis- 
pered to  her  mother. 

"  You  see,"  said  the  Baroness,  with  a  smile,  "there  is  a 
question  of  a  marriage  between  Sidonie  and  Monsieur  de 
Savaron." 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  hastily  went  to  a  window  look- 
ing out  over  the  garden. 

At  ten  o'clock  Albert  de  Savaron  had  not  yet  appeared. 
The  storm  that  threatened  now  burst.  Some  of  the  gentlemen 
sat  down  to  cards,  finding  the  thing  intolerable.  The  Abbe 
de  Grancey,  who  did  not  know  what  to  think,  went  to  the 
window  where  Rosalie  was  hidden,  and -exclaimed  aloud  in 
his  amazement,  "  He  must  be  dead  !  " 

The  vicar-general  stepped  out  into,  the  garden,  followed 
by  Monsieur  de  Watteville  and  his  daughter,  and  they  all 
three  went  up  to  the  kiosk.  In  Albert's  rooms  all  was  dark; 
not  a  light  was  to  be  seen. 

"  Jerome  !  "  cried  Rosalie,  seeing  the  servant  in  the  yard 
below.    The  abbe  looked  at  her  with  astonishment.     "  Where 


392  ALBERT  S AVAR  ON 

in  the  world  is  your  master?"  she  asked  the  man,  who  came 
to  the  foot  of  the  wall. 

"  Gone — in  a  post-chaise,  mademoiselle." 

"  He  is  ruined  !  "  exclaimed  the  Abbe  de  Grancey,  "  or  he 
is  happy  !  " 

The  joy  of  triumph  was  not  so  effectually  concealed  on 
Rosalie's  face  that  the  vicar-general  could  not  detect  it.  He 
affected  to  see  nothing. 

"  What  can  this  girl  have  had  to  do  with  this  business?  " 
he  asked  himself. 

They  all  three  returned  to  the  drawing-room,  where  Mon- 
sieur de  Watteville  announced  the  strange,  the  extraordinary, 
the  prodigious  news  of  the  lawyer's  departure,  without  any 
reason  assigned  for  his  evasion.  By  half- past  eleven  only 
fifteen  persons  remained,  among  them  Madame  de  Chavan- 
court  and  the  Abbe  de  Godenars,  another  vicar-general,  a 
man  of  about  forty,  who  hoped  for  a  bishopric  ;  the  two  Cha- 
voncourt  girls  and  Monsieur  de  Vauchelles,  the  Abbe  de 
Grancey,  Rosalie,  Amedee  de  Soulas,  and  a  retired  magis- 
trate, one  of  the  most  influential  members  of  the  upper  circle 
of  Besancon,  who  had  been  very  eager  for  Albert's  election. 
The  Abb6  de  Grancey  sat  down  by  the  Baroness  in  such  a 
position  as  to  watch  Rosalie,  whose  face,  usually  pale,  wore  a 
feverish  flush. 

"  What  can  have  happened  to  Monsieur  de  Savaron?  "  said 
Madame  de  Chavoncourt. 

At  this  moment  a  servant  in  livery  brought  in  a  letter  fa 
the  Abbe"  de  Grancey  on  a  silver  tray. 

"Pray  read  it,"  said  the  Baroness  de  Watteville,  with 
manifest  interest. 

The  vicar-general  read  the  letter ;  he  saw  Rosalie  suddenly 
turn  as  white  as  her  kerchief. 

"  She  recognizes  the  writing,"  said  he  to  himself,  after 
glancing  at  the  girl  over  his  spectacles.  He  folded  up  the 
letter,  and  calmly  put  it  in  his  pocket  without  a  word.     In 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON.  393 

three  minutes  he  had  met  three  looks  from  Rosalie  which  were 
enough  to  make  him  guess  everything. 

"  She  is  in  love  with  Albert  Savaron  !  "  thought  the  vicar- 
general. 

He  rose  and  took  leave.  He  was  going  towards  the  door 
when,  in  the  next  room,  he  was  overtaken  by  Rosalie,  who 
said — 

"  Monsieur  de  Grancey,  it  was  from  Albert !  " 

"  How  do  you  know  that  it  was  his  writing,  to  recognize  it 
from  so  far  ?  ' ' 

The  girl's  reply,  caught  as  she  was  in  the  toils  of  her  impa- 
tience and  rage,  seemed  to  the  abbe  sublime. 

"I  love  him!  What  is  the  matter?"  she  said  after  a 
pause. 

"  He  gives  up  the  election. " 

Rosalie  put  her  finger  to  her  lip. 

"I  ask  you  to  be  as  secret  as  if  it  were  a  confession/' 
said  she  before  returning  to  the  drawing-room.  "  If  there 
is  an  end  of  the  election,  there  is  an  end  of  the  marriage  with 
Sidonie." 

In  the  morning,  on  her  way  to  mass,  Mademoiselle  de  Wat- 
teville  heard  from  Mariette  some  of  the  circumstances  which 
had  prompted  Albert's  disappearance  at  the  most  critical  mo- 
ment of  his  life. 

"  Mademoiselle,  an  old  gentleman  from  Paris  arrived  yes- 
terday morning  at  the  Hotel  National ;  he  came  in  his  own 
carriage  with  four  horses,  and  a  courier  in  front,  and  a  servant. 
Indeed,  Jerome,  who  saw  the  carriage  returning,  declares  he 
could  only  be  a  prince  or  a  milord." 

"  Was  there  a  coronet  on  the  carriage?  "  asked  Rosalie. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  said  Mariette.  "  Just  as  two  was  striking 
he  came  to  call  on  Monsieur  Savaron,  and  sent  in  his  card; 
and  when  he  saw  it,  Jerome  says  Monsieur  turned  as  pale  as  a 
sheet,  and  said  he  was  to  be  shown  in.     As  he  himself  locked 


394  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

the  door,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  what  the  old  gentleman  and 
the  lawyer  said  to  each  other  ;  but  they  were  together  above 
an  hour,  and  then  the  old  gentleman,  with  the  lawyer,  called 
up  his  servant.  Jerome  saw  the  servant  go  out  again  with  an 
immense  package,  four  feet  long,  which  looked  like  a  great 
painting  on  canvas.  The  old  gentleman  had  in  his  hand  a 
large  parcel  of  papers.  Monsieur  Savaron  was  paler  than 
death,  and  he,  so  proud,  so  dignified,  was  in  a  state  to  be 
pitied.  But  he  treated  the  old  gentleman  so  respectfully  that 
he  could  not  have  been  politer  to  the  king  himself.  Jerome 
and  Monsieur  Albert  Savaron  escorted  the  gentleman  to  his 
carriage,  which  was  standing  with  the  horses  in.  The  courier 
started  on  the  stroke  of  three. 

"  Monsieur  Savaron  went  straight  to  the  prefecture,  and 
from  that  to  Monsieur  Gentillet,  who  sold  him  the  old  travel- 
ing carriage  that  used  to  belong  to  Madame  de  Saint-Vier 
before  she  died ;  then  he  ordered  post-horses  for  six  o'clock. 
He  went  home  to  pack ;  no  doubt  he  wrote  a  lot  of  letters ; 
finally,  he  settled  everything  with  Monsieur  Girardet,  who 
went  to  him  and  stayed  till  seven.  Jerome  carried  a  note  to 
Monsieur  Boucher,  with  whom  his  master  was  to  have  dined; 
and  then,  at  half-past  seven,  the  lawyer  set  out,  leaving 
Jerome  with  three  months'  wages,  and  telling  him  to  find 
another  place. 

"  He  left  his  keys  with  Monsieur  Girardet,  whom  he  took 
home,  and  at  his  house,  Jerome  says,  he  took  a  plate  of  soup, 
for  at  half-past  seven  Monsieur  Girardet  had  not  yet  dined. 
When  Monsieur  Savaron  got  into  the  carriage  again  he  looked 
like  death.  Jerome,  who,  of  course,  saw  his  master  off,  heard 
him  tell  the  postillion  '  The  Geneva  Road  !  '  " 

"  Did  Jerome  ask  the  name  of  the  stranger  at  the  Hotel 
National  ?" 

11  As  the  old  gentleman  did  not  mean  to  stay,  he  was  not 
asked  for  it.  The  servant,  by  his  orders  no  doubt,  pretended 
not  to  speak  French.' ' 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  395 

"And  the  letter  which  came  so  late  to  the  Abbe  de  Gran, 
cey?"  said  Rosalie. 

"It  was  Monsieur  Girardet,  no  doubt,  who  ought  to  have 
delivered  it ;  but  Jerome  says  that  poor  Monsieur  Girardet, 
who  was  much  attached  to  lawyer  Savaron,  was  as  much  upset 
as  he  was.  So  he  who  came  so  mysteriously,  as  Mademoiselle 
Galard  says,  is  gone  away  just  as  mysteriously." 

After  hearing  this  narrative,  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville 
fell  into  a  brooding  and  absent  mood,  which  everybody  could 
see.  It  is  useless  to  say  anything  of  the  commotion  that  arose 
in  Besancon  on  the  disappearance  of  Monsieur  Savaron.  It 
was  understood  that  the  prefect  had  obliged  him  with  the 
greatest  readiness  by  giving  him  at  once  a  passport  across  the 
frontier,  for  he  was  thus  quit  of  his  only  opponent.  Next  day 
Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt  was  carried  to  the  top  by  a  majority 
of  a  hundred  and  forty  votes. 

"Jack  is  gone  by  the  way  he  came,"  said  an  elector  on 
hearing  of  Albert  Savaron's  flight. 

This  event  lent  weight  to  the  prevailing  prejudice  at 
Besancon  against  strangers ;  indeed,  two  years  previously  they 
had  received  confirmation  from  the  affair  of  the  Republican 
newspaper.  Ten  days  later  Albert  de  Savaron  was  never 
spoken  of  again.  Only  three  persons — Girardet  the  attorney, 
the  vicar-general,  and  Rosalie — were  seriously  affected  by  his 
disappearance.  Girardet  knew  that  the  white-haired  stranger 
was  Prince  Soderini,  for  he  had  seen  his  card,  and  he  told  the 
vicar-general ;  but  Rosalie,  better  informed  than  either  of 
them,  had  known  for  three  months  past  that  the  Due  d' Argaiolo 
was  dead. 

In  the  month  of  April,  1836,  no  one  had  had  any  news 
from  or  of  Albert  de  Savaron.  Jerome  and  Mariette  were  to 
be  married,  but  the  Baroness  confidentially  desired  her  maid 
to  wait  till  her  daughter  was  married,  saying  that  the  two 
weddings  might  take  place  at  the  same  time. 

"It   is   time  that  Rosalie  should   be  married,"   said  the 


396  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

Baroness  one  day  to  Monsieur  de  Watteville.  "  She  is  nine- 
teen, and  she  is  fearfully  altered  in  these  last  months." 

"I  do  not  know  what  ails  her,"  said  the  Baron. 

"When  fathers  do  not  know  what  ails  their  daughters, 
mothers  can  guess,"  said  the  Baroness;  "we  must  get  her 
married." 

"I  am  quite  willing,"  said  the  Baron.  "I  shall  give  her 
Les  Rouxey  now  that  the  court  has  settled  our  quarrel  with  the 
authorities  of  Riceys  by  fixing  the  boundary  line  at  three 
hundred  feet  up  the  side  of  the  Dent  de  Vilard.  I  am  having 
a  trench  made  to  collect  all  the  water  and  carry  it  into  the 
lake.     The  village  did  not  appeal,  so  the  decision  is  final." 

"It  has  never  yet  occurred  to  you,"  said  Madame  de 
Watteville,  "  that  this  decision  cost  me  thirty  thousand  francs 
handed  over  to  Chantonnit.  That  peasant  would  take  noth- 
ing else ;  he  sold  us  peace.  If  you  give  away  Les  Rouxey, 
you  will  have  nothing  left,"  said  the  Baroness. 

"I  do  not  need  much,"  said  the  Baron;  "I  am  breaking 
up." 

"  You  eat  like  an  ogre  !  " 

"Just  so.  But  however  much  I  may  eat,  I  feel  my  legs 
get  weaker  and  weaker " 

"It  is  from  working  the  lathe,"  said  his  wife. 

"I  do  not  know,"  said  he. 

"We  will  marry  Rosalie  to  Monsieur  de  Soulas;  if  you 
give  her  Les  Rouxey,  keep  the  life  interest.  I  will  give  them 
fifteen  thousand  francs  a  year  in  the  funds.  Our  children  can 
live  here;  I  do  not  see  that  they  are  much  to  be  pitied." 

"  No.  I  shall  give  them  Les  Rouxey  out  and  out.  Rosalie 
is  fond  of  Les  Rouxey." 

"  You  are  a  queer  man  with  your  daughter  !  It  does  not 
occur  to  you  to  ask  me  if  I  am  fond  of  Les  Rouxey." 

Rosalie,  at  once  sent  for,  was  informed  that  she  was  to 
marry  Monsieur  de  Soulas  one  day  early  in  the  month  of 
May. 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  397 

".  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you,  mother,  and  to  you  too, 
father,  for  having  thought  of  settling  me  ;  but  I  do  not  mean 
to  marry  ;  I  am  very  happy  with  you." 

"  Mere  speeches  I  "  said  the  Baroness.  "  You  are  not  in 
love  with  Monsieur  de  Soulas,  that  is  all." 

"  If  you  insist  on  the  plain  truth,  I  will  never  marry  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas " 

"Oh!  the  never  of  a  girl  of  nineteen!"  retorted  her 
mother,  with  a  bitter  smile. 

"The  never  of  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,"  said  Rosalie 
with  firm  decision.  "  My  father,  I  imagine,  has  no  intention 
of  making  me  marry  against  my  wishes?" 

"  No,  indeed  no !  "  said  the  poor  Baron,  looking  affection- 
ately at  his  daughter. 

"Very  well!"  said  the  Baroness,  sternly  controlling  the 
rage  of  a  bigot  startled  at  finding  herself  unexpectedly  defied, 
"  you  yourself,  Monsieur  de  Watteville,  may  take  the  respon- 
sibility of  settling  your  daughter.  Consider  well,  Made- 
moiselle, for  if  you  do  not  marry  to  my  mind  you  will  get 
nothing  out  of  me!" 

The  quarrel  thus  begun  between  Madame  de  Watteville 
and  her  husband,  who  took  his  daughter's  part,  went  so  far 
that  Rosalie  and  her  father  were  obliged  to  spend  the  summer 
at  Les  Rouxey  ;  life  at  the  Hotel  de  Rupt  was  unendurable. 
It  thus  became  known  in  Besancon  that  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville  had  positively  refused  the  Comte  de  Soulas. 

After  their  marriage  Mariette  and  Jerome  came  to  Les 
Rouxey  to  succeed  Modinier  in  due  time.  The  Baron  re- 
stored and  repaired  the  house  to  suit  his  daughter's  taste. 
When  she  heard  that  these  improvements  had  cost  about  sixty 
thousand  francs,  and  that  Rosalie  and  her  father  were  build- 
ing a  conservatory,  the  Baroness  .understood  that  there  was  a 
leaven  of  spite  in  her  daughter.  The  Baron  purchased  vari- 
ous outlying  plots,  and  a  little  estate  worth  thirty  thousand 
francs.     Madame  de  Watteville  was  told  that,  away  from  her, 


Z9$  ALBERT  SAVAKOtf. 

Rosalie  showed  masterly  qualities,  that  she  was  taking  steps  to 
improve  the  value  of  Les  Rouxey,  that  she  had  treated  herself 
to  a  riding-habit  and  rode  about ;  her  father,  whom  she  made 
very  happy,  who  no  longer  complained  of  his  health,  and  who 
was  growing  fat,  accompanied  her  in  her  expeditions.  As  the 
Baroness'  name-day  drew  near — her  name  was  Louise — the 
vicar-general  came  one  day  to  Les  Rouxey,  deputed,  no  doubt, 
by  Madame  de  Watteville  and  Monsieur  de  Soulas,  to  nego- 
tiate a  peace  between  the  mother  and  daughter. 

"  That  little  Rosalie  has  a  head  on  her  shoulders,"  said  the 
folk  of  Besancon. 

After  handsomely  paying  up  the  ninety  thousand  francs 
spent  on  Les  Rouxey,  the  Baroness  allowed  her  husband  a  thou- 
sand francs  a  month  to  live  on  ;  she  would  not  put  herself  in 
the  wrong.  The  father  and  daughter  were  perfectly  willing 
to  return  to  Besancon  for  the  15th  of  August,  and  to  remain 
there  till  the  end  of  the  month. 

When,  after  dinner,  the  vicar-general  took  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville  apart,  to  open  the  question  of  the  marriage,  by 
explaining  to  her  that  it  was  vain  to  think  any  more  of 
Albert,  of  whom  they  had  had  no  news  for  a  year  past,  he 
was  stopped  at  once  by  a  sign  from  Rosalie.  The  strange  girl 
took  Monsieur  de  Grancey  by  the  arm,  and  led  him  to  a  seat 
under  a  clump  of  rhododendrons,  whence  there  was  a  view  of 
the  lake. 

"Listen,  dear  abbe,"  said  she.  "You  whom  I  love  as 
much  as  my  father,  for  you  had  an  affection  for  my  Albert,  I 
must  at  last  confess  that  I  committed  crimes  to  become  his 
wife,  and  he  must  be  my  husband.     Here  ;  read  this." 

She  held  out  to  him  a  number  of  the  Gazette  which  she  had 
in  her  apron  pocket,  pointing  out  the  following  paragraph 
under  the  date  of  Florence,  May  25th  : 

"  The  wedding  of  Monsieur  le  Due  de  Rhetore,  eldest  son 
of  the  Due  de  Chaulieu,  the  former  ambassador,  to  Madame  la 
Duchesse  d'Argaiolo,  nee  Princess  Soderini,  was  solemnized 


ALBEk T  SA  VARON.  300 

with  great  splendor.  Numerous  entertainments  given  in 
honor  of  the  marriage  are  making  Florence  gay.  The 
Duchess*  fortune  is  one  of  the  finest  in  Italy,  for  the  late 
Duke  left  her  everything." 

"  The  woman  he  loved  is  married,"  said  she.  "I  divided 
them." 

"  You?     How?"  asked  the  abbe. 

Rosalie  was  about  to  reply,  when  she  was  interrupted  by  a 
loud  cry  from  two  of  the  gardeners,  following  on  the  sound 
of  a  body  falling  into  the  water ;  she  started,  and  ran  off 
screaming,  "  Oh  !  father  !  "     The  Baron  had  disappeared. 

In  trying  to  reach  a  piece  of  granite  on  which  he  fancied 
he  saw  the  impression  of  a  shell,  a  circumstance  which  would 
have  contradicted  some  system  of  geology,  Monsieur  de 
Watteville  had  gone  down  the  slope,  lost  his  balance,  and 
slipped  into  the  lake,  which,  of  course,  was  deepest  close 
under  the  roadway.  The  men  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
enabling  the  Baron  to  catch  hold  of  a  pole  pushed  down  at 
the  place  where  the  water  was  bubbling,  but  at  last  they 
pulled  him  out,  covered  with  mud,  in  which  he  had  sunk;  he 
was  getting  deeper  and  deeper  in,  by  dint  of  struggling.  Mon- 
sieur de  Watteville  had  dined  heavily,  digestion  was  in  pro- 
gress, and  was  thus  checked. 

When  he  had  been  undressed,  washed,  and  put  to  bed,  he 
was  in  such  evident  danger  that  two  servants  at  once  set  out 
on  horseback :  one  to  ride  to  Besancon,  and  the  other  to  fetch 
the  nearest  doctor  and  surgeon.  When  Madame  de  Watte- 
ville arrived,  eight  hours  later,  with  the  first  medical  aid  from 
Besancon,  they  found  Monsieur  de  Watteville  past  all  hope,  in 
spite  of  the  intelligent  treatment  of  the  Rouxey  doctor.  The 
fright  had  produced  serious  effusion  on  the  brain,  and  the 
shock  to  the  digestion  was  helping  to  kill  the  poor  man. 

This  death,  which  would  never  have  happened,  said  Madame 
de  Watteville,  if  her  husband  had  stayed  at  Besancon,  was 
ascribed  by  her  to  her  daughter's  obstinacy.     She  took  an 


400  ALBER T  SA  VARON. 

aversion  for  Rosalie,  abandoning  herself  to  grief  and  regrets 
that  were  evidently  exaggerated.  She  spoke  of  the  Baron  as 
"  her  dear  lamb  !  " 

The  last  of  the  Wattevilles  was  buried  on  an  island  in  the 
lake  at  Les  Rouxey,  where  the  Baroness  had  a  little  Gothic 
monument  erected  of  white  marble,  like  that  called  the  tomb 
of  Heloise  at  Pere-Lachaise. 

A  month  after  this  catastrophe  the  mother  and  daughter  had 
settled  in  the  Hotel  de  Rupt,  where  they  lived  in  savage  silence. 
Rosalie  was  suffering  from  real  sorrow,  which  had  no  visible 
outlet;  she  accused  herself  of  her  father's  death,  and  she 
feared  another  disaster,  much  greater  in  her  eyes,  and  very 
certainly  her  own  work  ;  neither  Girardet  the  attorney  nor 
the  Abbe  de  Grancey  could  obtain  any  information  con- 
cerning Albert.  This  silence  was  appalling.  In  a  paroxysm 
of  repentance  she  felt  that  she  must  confess  to  the  vicar-general 
the  horrible  machinations  by  which  she  had  separated  Fran- 
cesca  and  Albert.  They  had  been  simple,  but  formidable. 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  had  intercepted  Albert's  letters  to 
the  Duchess  as  well  as  that  in  which  Francesca  announced 
her  husband's  illness,  warning  her  lover  that  she  could  write 
to  him  no  more  during  the  time  while  she  was  devoted,  as  was 
her  duty,  to  the  care  of  the  dying  man.  Thus,  while  Albert 
was  wholly  occupied  with  election  matters,  the  Duchess  had 
written  him  only  two  letters;  one  in  which  she  told  him  that 
the  Due  d'Argaiolo  was  in  danger,  and  one  announcing  her 
widowhood — two  noble  and  beautiful  letters,  which  Rosalie 
kept  back. 

After  several  nights'  labor  she  succeeded  in  imitating 
Albert's  writing  very  perfectly.  She  had  substituted  three 
letters  of  her  own  writing  for  three  of  Albert's,  and  the  rough 
copies  which  she  showed  to  the  old  priest  made  him  shudder 
— the  genius  of  evil  was  revealed  in  them  to  such  perfection. 
Rosalie,  writing  in  Albert's  name,  had  prepared  the  Duchess 
for  a  change  in  the  Frenchman's  feelings,  falsely  representing 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON.  401 

him  as  faithless,  and  she  had  answered  the  news  of  the  Due 
d'Argaiolo's  death  by  announcing  the  marriage  ere  long  of 
Albert  and  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville.  The  two  letters, 
intended  to  cross  on  the  road,  had,  in  fact,  done  so.  The 
infernal  cleverness  with  which  the  letters  were  written  so  much 
astonished  the  vicar-general  that  he  read  them  a  second  time. 
Francesca,  stabbed  to  the  heart  by  a  girl  who  wanted  to  kill 
love  in  her  rival,  had  answered  the  last  in  these  four  words : 
"You  are  free.     Farewell." 

"  Purely  moral  crimes,  which  give  no  hold  to  human  justice, 
are  the  most  atrocious  and  detestable,"  said  the  abbe  severely. 
"  God  often  punishes  them  on  earth ;  herein  lies  the  reason 
of  the  terrible  catastrophes  which  to  us  seem  inexplicable.  Of 
all  secret  crimes  buried  in  the  mystery  of  private  life,  the  most 
disgraceful  is  that  of  breaking  the  seal  of  a  letter,  or  of  reading 
it  surreptitiously.  Every  one,  whoever  it  may  be,  and  urged 
by  whatever  reason,  who  is  guilty  of  such  an  act  has  stained 
his  honor  beyond  retrieving. 

"  Do  you  not  feel  all  that  is  touching,  that  is  heavenly  in 
the  story  of  the  youthful  page,  falsely  accused,  and  carrying 
the  letter  containing  the  order  for  his  execution,  who  sets  out 
without  a  thought  of  ill,  and  whom  Providence  protects  and 
saves — miraculously,  we  say  !  But  do  you  know  wherein  the 
miracle  lies  ?  Virtue  has  a  glory  as  potent  as  that  of  innocent 
childhood. 

"  I  say  these  things  not  meaning  to  admonish  you,"  said 
the  old  priest,  with  deep  grief.  "  I,  alas  !  am  not  your  spirit- 
ual director ;  you  are  not  kneeling  at  the  feet  of  God  ;  I  am 
your  friend,  appalled  by  dread  of  what  your  punishment  may 
be.  What  has  become  of  that  unhappy  Albert?  Has  he, 
perhaps,  killed  himself?  There  was  tremendous  passion 
under  his  assumption  of  calm.  I  understand  now  that  old 
Prince  Soderini,  the  father  of  the  Duchess  d'Argaiolo,  came 
here  to  take  back  his  daughter's  letters  and  portraits.  This 
was  the  thunderbolt  that  fell  on  Albert's  head,  and  he  went 


402  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

off,  no  doubt,  to  try  to  justify  himself.     But  how  is  it  that  in 
fourteen  months  he  has  given  us  no  news  of  himself?  " 

"  Oh  !  if  I  marry  him,  he  will  be  so  happy  !  " 

"  Happy?  He  does  not  love  you.  Besides,  you  have  no 
great  fortune  to  give  him.  Your  mother  detests  you  ;  you 
made  her  a  fierce  reply  which  rankles,  and  which  will  be 
your  ruin.  When  she  told  you  yesterday  that  obedience  was 
the  only  way  to  repair  your  errors,  and  reminded  you  of  the 
need  for  marrying,  mentioning  Amedee — '  If  you  are  so  fond 
of  him,  marry  him  yourself,  mother !  ' — Did  you,  or  did  you 
not,  fling  these  words  in  her  teeth?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Rosalie. 

"  Well,  I  know  her,"  Monsieur  de  Grancey  went  on.  "  In 
a  few  months  she  will  be  Comtesse  de  Soulas  !  She  will  be 
sure  to  have  children  ;  she  will  give  Monsieur  de  Soulas  forty 
thousand  francs  a  year ;  she  will  benefit  him  in  other  ways, 
and  reduce  your  share  of  her  fortune  as  much  as  possible. 
You  will  be  poor  as  long  as  she  lives,  and  she  is  but  eight-and- 
thirty  !  Your  whole  estate  will  be  the  land  of  Les  Rouxey, 
and  the  small  share  left  to  you  after  your  father's  legal  debts 
are  settled,  if  indeed,  your  mother  should  consent  to  forego 
her  claims  on  Les  Rouxey.  From  the  point  of  view  of  mate- 
rial advantages,  you  have  done  badly  for  yourself;  from  the 
point  of  view  of  feeling,  I  imagine  you  have  wrecked  your 

life.     Instead  of  going  to  your  mother "     Rosalie  shook 

her  head  fiercely. 

"To  your  mother,"  the  priest  went  on,  "and  to  religion, 
where  you  would,  at  the  first  impulse  of  your  heart,  have 
found  enlightenment,  counsel  and  guidance,  you  chose  to  act 
in  your  own  way,  knowing  nothing  of  life,  and  listening  only 
to  passion  !  ' ' 

These  words  of  wisdom  terrified  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville. 

"And  what  ought  I  to  do  now?"  she  asked  after  a  brief 
pause. 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON.  403 

"  To  repair  your  wrongdoing,  you  must  ascertain  its  ex- 
tent," said  the  abbe. 

"  Well,  I  will  write  to  the  only  man  who  can  know  any- 
thing of  Albert's  fate,  Monsieur  Leopold  Hannequin,  a  notary 
in  Paris,  his  friend  from  childhood." 

"  Write  no  more,  unless  to  do  honor  to  truth,"  said  the 
vicar-general.  "  Place  the  real  and  the  false  letters  in  my 
hands,  confess  everything  in  detail  as  though  I  were  the  keeper 
of  your  conscience,  asking  me  how  you  may  expiate  your  sins, 
and  doing  as  I  bid  you.  I  shall  see — for,  above  all  things, 
restore  this  unfortunate  man  to  his  innocence  in  the  eyes  of  the 
woman  he  had  made  his  divinity  on  earth.  Though  he  has 
lost  his  happiness,  Albert  must  still  hope  for  justification." 

Rosalie  promised  to  obey  the  abbe,  hoping  that  the  st  ps 
he  might  take  would  perhaps  end  in  bringing  Albert  back  to 
her. 

Not  long  after  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville's  confession  a 
clerk  came  to  Besancon  from  Monsieur  Leopold  Hannequin, 
armed  with  a  power  of  attorney  from  Albert;  he  called  first 
on  Monsieur  Girardet,  begging  his  assistance  in  selling  the 
house  belonging  to  Monsieur  Savaron.  The  attorney  under- 
took to  do  this  out  of  friendship  for  Albert.  The  clerk  from 
Paris  sold  the  furniture,  and  with  the  proceeds  could  repay 
some  money  owed  by  Savaron  to  Girardet,  who,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  his  inexplicable  departure,  had  lent  him  five  thousand 
francs  while  undertaking  to  collect  his  assets.  When  Girardet 
asked  what  had  become  of  the  handsome  and  noble  pleader, 
to  whom  he  had  been  much  attached,  the  clerk  replied  that 
no  one  knew  but  his  master,  and  that  the  notary  had  seemed 
greatly  distressed  by  the  contents  of  the  last  letter  he  had 
received  from  Monsieur  Albert  de  Savaron. 

On  hearing  this,  the  vicar-general  wrote  to  Leopold.  This 
was  the  worthy  notary's  reply? 


404  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

"To   Monsieur   l'Abbe   de    Grancey,  Vicar-General  of  the 
Diocese  of  Besancon. 

"Paris. 

"  Alas,  monsieur,  it  is  in  nobody's  power  to  restore  Albert 
to  the  life  of  the  world;  he  has  renounced  it.  He  is  a  novice 
in  the  monastery  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse  near  Grenoble. 
You  know,  better  than  I  who  have  but  just  learned  it,  that  on 
the  threshold  of  that  cloister  everything  dies.  Albert,  foresee- 
ing that  I  should  go  to  him,  placed  the  general  of  the  order  be- 
tween my  utmost  efforts  and  himself.  I  know  his  noble  soul 
well  enough  to  be  sure  that  he  is  the  victim  of  some  odious 
plot  unknown  to  us  ;  but  everything  is  at  an  end.  The  Duch- 
esse  d'Argaiolo,  now  Duchesse  de  Rhetore,  seems  to  me  to 
have  carried  severity  to  an  extreme.  At  Belgirate,  which  she 
had  left  when  Albert  flew  thither,  she  had  left  instructions 
leading  him  to  believe  that  she  was  living  in  London.  From 
London  Albert  went  in  search  of  her  to  Naples,  and  from 
Naples  to  Rome,  where  she  was  now  engaged  to  the  Due  de 
Rhetore.  When  Albert  succeeded  in  seeing  Madame  d'Ar- 
gaiolo, at  Florence,  it  was  at  the  ceremony  of  her  marriage. 

"  Our  poor  friend  swooned  in  church,  and  even  when  he  was 
in  danger  of  death  he  could  never  obtain  any  explanation  from 
this  woman,  who  must  have  had  I  know  not  what  in  her 
heart.  For  seven  months  Albert  had  traveled  in  pursuit  of  a 
cruel  creature  who  thought  it  sport  to  escape  him  ;  he  knew 
not  where  or  how  to  catch  her. 

"  I  saw  him  on  his  way  through  Paris  ;  and  if  you  had  seen 
him,  as  I  did,  you  would  have  felt  that  not  a  word  might  be 
spoken  about  the  Duchess,  at  the  risk  of  bringing  on  an  attack 
which  might  have  wrecked  his  reason.  If  he  had  known  what 
his  crime  was,  he  might  have  found  means  to  justify  himself; 
but  being  falsely  accused  of  being  married  ! — what  could  he 
do?  Albert  is  dead,  quite  dead  to  the  world.  He  loaged  for 
rest ;  let  us  hope  that  the  deep  silence  and  prayer  into  which 
he  has  thrown  himself  may  give  him  happiness  in  another 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  405 

guise.     You,  monsieur,  who  have  known  him,  must  greatly 
pity  him  ;  and  pity  his  friends  also. 

"  Yours,  etc." 

As  soon  as  he  received  this  letter  the  good  vicar-general 
wrote  to  the  general  of  the  Carthusian  order,  and  this  was  the 
letter  he  received  from  Albert  Savaron  : 

"Brother  Albert   to    Monsieur    TAbbe  de  Grancey,  Vicar- 
General  of  the  Diocese  of  Besancon. 

"  La  Grande  Chartreuse. 
"  I  recognized  your  tender  soul,  dear  and  well-beloved 
vicar-general,  and  your  still  youthful  heart,  in  all  that  the 
reverend  father  general  of  our  order  has  just  told  me.  You 
have  understood  the  only  wish  that  lurks  in  the  depths  of  my 
heart  so  far  as  the  things  of  the  world  are  concerned — to  get 
justice  done  to  my  feelings  by  her  who  has  treated  me  so 
badly  !  But  before  leaving  me  at  liberty  to  avail  myself  of 
your  offer,  the  general  wanted  to  know  that  my  vocation  was 
sincere  ;  he  was  so  kind  as  to  tell  me  his  idea,  on  finding  that 
I  was  determined  to  preserve  absolute  silence  on  this  point. 
If  I  had  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  rehabilitate  the  man 
of  the  world,  the  friar  would  have  been  rejected  by  this  monas- 
tery. Grace  has  certainly  done  her  work  ;  but,  though  short, 
the  struggle  was  not  the  less  keen  or  the  less  painful.  Is  not 
this  enough  to  show  you  that  I  could  never  return  to  the 
world. 

"  Hence  my  forgiveness,  which  you  ask  for  the  author  of  so 
much  woe,  is  entire  and  without  a  thought  of  vindictiveness. 
I  will  pray  to  God  to  forgive  that  young  lady  as  I  forgive  her, 
and  as  I  shall  beseech  Him  to  give  Madame  de  Rhetore  a  life 
of  happiness.  Ah  !  whether  it  be  death,  or  the  obstinate 
hand  of  a  young  girl  madly  bent  on  being  loved,  or  one  of  the 
blows  ascribed  to  chance,  must  we  not  all  obey  God  ?  Sorrow 
in  some  souls  makes  a  vast  void  through  which  the  Divine 
voice  rings.     I  learned  too  late  the  bearings  of  this  life  on 


406  ALBERT  SAVARON. 

that  which  awaits  us ;  all  in  me  is  worn  out ;  I  could  not  serve 
in  the  ranks  of  the  church  militant,  and  I  lay  the  remains  of 
an  almost  extinct  life  at  the  "foot  of  the  altar. 

"  This  is  the  last  time  I  shall  ever  write.  You  alone,  who 
loved  me,  and  whom  I  loved  so  well,  could  make  me  break 
the  law  of  oblivion  I  imposed  on  myself  when  I  entered  these 
headquarters  of  Saint  Bruno,  but  you  are  always  especially 
named  in  the  prayers  of 

"  Brother  Albert. 

"  November,  1836." 

"Everything  is  for  the  best,  perhaps,"  thought  the  Abbe 
de  Grancey. 

When  he  showed  this  letter  to  Rosalie,  who  with  a  pious 
impulse  kissed  the  lines  which  contained  her  forgiveness,  he 
said  to  her — 

"Well,  now  that  he  is  lost  to  you,  will  you  not  be  recon- 
ciled to  your  mother  and  marry  the  Comte  de  Soulas?" 

"Only  if  Albert  should  order  it,"  said  she. 

"  But  you  see  it  is  impossible  to  consult  him.  The  general 
of  the  order  would  not  allow  it." 

"  If  I  were  to  go  to  see  him  ?  " 

"  No  Carthusian  sees  any  visitor.  Besides,  no  woman  but 
the  Queen  of  France  may  enter  a  Carthusian  monastery,"  said 
the  abbe.  "  So  you  have  no  longer  any  excuse  for  not  marry- 
ing young  Monsieur  de  Soulas." 

"  I  do  not  wish  to  destroy  my  mother's  happiness,"  retorted 
Rosalie. 

"  Satan  !  "  exclaimed  the  vicar-general. 

Towards  the  end  of  that  winter  the  worthy  Abbe  de  Grancey 
died.  This  good  friend  no  longer  stood  between  Madame 
de  Watteville  and  her  daughter,  to  soften  the  impact  of  those 
two  iron  wills. 

The  event  he  had  foretold  took  place.  In  the  month  of 
August,  1837,  Madame  de  Watteville  was  married  to  Monsieur 
de  Soulas  in  Paris,  whither  she  went  by  Rosalie's  advice,  the 


ALBERT  S AVAR  ON.  407 

girl  making  a  show  of  kindness  and  sweetness  to  her  mother. 
Madame  de  Watteville  believed  in  this  affection  on  the  part 
of  her  daughter,  who  simply  desired  to  go  to  Paris  to  give 
herself  the  luxury  of  a  bitter  revenge  ;  she  thought  of  nothing 
but  avenging  Savaron  by  torturing  her  rival. 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  had  been  declared  legally  of 
age;  she  was,  in  fact,  not  far  from  one-and-twenty.  Her 
mother,  to  settle  with  her  finally,  had  resigned  her  claims  on 
Les  Rouxey,  and  the  daughter  had  signed  a  release  for  all  the 
inheritance  of  the  Baron  de  Watteville.  Rosalie  encouraged 
her  mother  to  marry  the  Comte  de  Soulas  and  settle  all  her 
own  fortune  on  him. 

"  Let  us  each  be  perfectly  free,"  she  said. 

Madame  de  Soulas,  who  had  been  uneasy  as  to  her  daugh- 
ter's intentions,  was  touched  by  this  liberality,  and  made  her 
a  present  of  six  thousand  francs  a  year  in  the  funds  as  con- 
science money.  As  the  Comtesse  de  Soulas  had  an  income 
of  forty-eight  thousand  francs  from  her  own  lands,  and  was 
quite  incapable  of  alienating  them  in  order  to  diminish 
Rosalie's  share,  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  was  still  a  fortune 
to  marry,  of  eighteen  hundred  thousand  francs  ;  Les  Rouxey, 
with  the  Baron's  additions,  and  certain  improvements,  might 
yield  twenty  thousand  francs  a  year,  besides  the  value  of  the 
house,  rents,  and  preserves.  So  Rosalie  and  her  mother,  who 
soon  adopted  the  Paris  style  and  fashions,  easily  obtained 
introductions  to  the  best  society.  The  golden  key — eighteen 
hundred  thousand  francs — embroidered  on  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville's  stomacher,  did  more  for  the  Comtesse  de  Soulas 
than  her  pretentions  a  la  de  Rupt,  her  inappropriate  pride,  or 
even  her  rather  distant  great  connections. 

In  the  month  of  February,  1838,  Rosalie,  who  was  eagerly 
courted  by  many  young  men,  achieved  the  purpose  which  had 
brought  her  to  Paris.  This  was  to  meet  the  Duchesse  de 
Rhetore,  to  see  this  wonderful  woman,  and  to  overwhelm  her 
with  perennial  remorse.     Rosalie  gave  herself  up  to  the  most 


408  ALBERT  S AVAR  ON. 

bewildering  elegance  and  vanities  in  order  to  face  the  Duchess 
on  an  equal  footing. 

They  first  met  at  a  ball  given  annually  after  1830  for  the 
benefit  of  the  pensioners  on  the  old  Civil  List.  A  young 
man,  prompted  by  Rosalie,  pointed  her  out  to  the  Duchess, 
saying — 

"  There  is  a  very  remarkable  young  person,  a  strong-minded 
young  lady  too  !  She  drove  a  clever  man  into  a  monastery 
— the  Grande  Chartreuse — a  man  of  immense  capabilities, 
Albert  de  Savaron,  whose  career  she  wrecked.  She  is  Made- 
moiselle de  Watte ville,  the  famous  Besancon  heiress " 

The  Duchess  turned  pale.  Rosalie's  eyes  met  hers  with 
one  of  those  flashes  which,  between  woman  and  woman,  are 
more  fatal  than  the  pistol-shots  of  a  duel.  Francesca  Soderini, 
who  had  suspected  that  Albert  might  be  innocent,  hastily 
quitted  the  ball-room,  leaving  the  speaker  at  his  wits'  end  to 
guess  what  terrible  blow  he  had  inflicted  on  the  beautiful 
Duchesse  de  Rhetore* 

"If  you  want  to  hear  more  about  Albert,  come  to  the 
opera  ball  on  Tuesday  with  a  marigold  in  your  hand." 

This  anonymous  note,  sent  by  Rosalie  to  the  Duchess, 
brought  the  unhappy  Italian  to  the  ball,  where  Mademoiselle 
de  Watteville  placed  in  her  hand  all  Albert's  letters,  with  that 
written  to  Leopold  Hannequin  by  the  vicar-general,  and  the 
notary's  reply,  and  even  that  in  which  she  had  written  her 
own  confession  to  the  Abbe  de  Grancey. 

aI  do  not  choose  to  be  the  only  sufferer,"  she  said  to  her 
rival,  "  for  one  has  been  as  ruthless  as  the  other." 

After  enjoying  the  dismay  stamped  on  the  Duchess'  beau- 
tiful face,  Rosalie  went  away;  she  went  out  no  more,  and 
returned  to  Besancon  with  her  mother. 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  who  lived  alone  on  her  estate 
of  Les  Rouxey,  riding,  hunting,  refusing. two  or  three  offers  a 


ALBERT  SAVARON.  409 

year,  going  to  Besancon  four  or  five  times  in  the  course  of 
the  winter,  and  busying  herself  with  improving  her  land,  was 
regarded  as  a  very  eccentric  personage.  She  was  one  of  the 
celebrities  of  the  Eastern  provinces. 

Madame  de  Soulas  has  two  children,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  and 
she  has  grown  younger ;  but  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  has 
aged  a  good  deal. 

"  My  fortune  has  cost  me  dear,"  said  he  to  young  Chavon- 
court.  "  Really  to  know  a  bigot  it  is  unfortunately  necessary 
to  marry  her  !  " 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  behaves  in  the  most  extra- 
ordinary manner.  "She  has  vagaries,"  people  say.  Every 
year  she  goes  to  gaze  at  the  walls  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse. 
Perhaps  she  dreams  of  imitating  her  grand-uncle  by  forcing 
the  walls  of  the  monastery  to  find  a  husband,  as  Watteville 
broke  through  those  of  his  monastery  to  recover  his  liberty. 

She  left  Besancon  in  1841,  intending,  it  was  said,  to  get 
married ;  but  the  real  reason  of  this  expedition  is  still  un- 
known, for  she  returned  home  in  a  state  which  forbids  her 
ever  appearing  in  society  again.  By  one  of  those  chances  of 
which  the  Abbe  de  Grancey  had  spoken,  she  happened  to  be 
on  the  Loire  in  a  steamboat  of  which  the  boiler  burst. 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  was  so  severely  injured  that  she 
lost  her  right  arm  and  her  left  leg ;  her  face  is  marked  with 
fearful  scars,  which  have  bereft  her  of  her  beauty  ;  her  health, 
cruelly  upset,  leaves  her  few  days  free  from  suffering.  In 
short,  she  now  never  leaves  the  Chartreuse  of  Les  Rouxey, 
where  she  leads  a  life  wholly  devoted  to  religious  practices. 

Paris,  May,  1842. 


